HORIZON: AN AMERICAN SAGA – CHAPTER 2 (2024): Kevin Costner’s Second HORIZON Film is Not Welcomed Too Warmly by Critics

Costner’s Latest Horizon Movie Disappoints Critics

After bombing at the box-office with Chapter 1, the Horizon: An American Saga series gets more bad news with a mere 3-minute ovation for Kevin Costner at the Venice Film Festival and tepid reviews for Chapter 2.

Kevin Costner could have tightened up his dream project, Horizon: An American Saga, into a single film or two. If he couldn’t, it should have been a TV series and critics seem to attest to that fact in their reviews of the second in the series that Costner, himself, helped finance. People are saying they enjoyed Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 at home on Max but big screen audiences didn’t like it as evidenced by its “B-” CinemaScore grade. Now we have another problem: The second film in the series which was withdrew from the August theatrical release schedule has just bombed out at the Venice Film Festival with disappointing reviews and ovation time.

Whatever Costner has up his sleeve for part 3 and 4 of this Horizon franchise, well, we may never know. At this point, a big-screen release for Chapter 2 seems a bit iffy, to say the least. A really great film gets 18-minutes ovation time such as The Room Next Door, a film with Oscar-worthy acting like Babygirl gets 7-minutes. A 3-minute ovation feels like just a courtesy in the case of this new Costner effort that was recently unveiled at Venice. It most likely cost a lot more than the other 2 aforementioned films which received longer ovations which serves to help intensify the blow to Costner’s film series.

The $29 million the first Horizon made domestically is just as bad as the $25 million Costner’s flop, Wyatt Earp, made back in 1994. A long running-time could have hurt too but that “B-” didn’t spread word of mouth at all. These Horizon films will probably find an audience on streaming but they don’t have any justification behind their bloated budgets. Costner may have cast too many big character actors in parts in these pictures although I am not aware of their salaries so cannot attest that they are a significant part of the large budget for these films.

However, one thing is certain. The critics are not amused. Variety suggests that the movie series would have been better on TV while a critic from ScreenRant believes the same. The list goes on. The Wrap doesn’t think that Chapter 2 will see a theatrical release. The Hollywood Reporter offered a glimmer of hope, however. The outlet reported that the second entry added some dimensions to the characters it features.

We all still love Costner as a filmmaker and as an actor. He won the critics’ accolades when he was the quintessential American actor of the late 1980’s and early 1990’s in Dances with Wolves, Field of Dreams and JFK. We will all most likely respect Costner’s Horizon efforts on TV but probably won’t go back to the theater to see another one, if we even went in the first place for Chapter 1. I did and would go back for Chapter 2 only because I respect Costner’s work as an artist. I am in the minority.

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