Kevin Costner can’t seem to get his numbers straight.
At first, he said he only invested $20 million of his own money on the ‘Horizon’ films and then, just a few days ago, claimed it was actually $38 million. Now, he’s telling a confused Anne Thompson, via IndieWire, that it was $100 million!?
“If I make the fourth one, it will be over [Coppola’s $120 million],” he said. “People don’t know what the reality is. ‘Oh, you know what, I’m happier that these two have been made.’ And then I know by hook or by crook, I’m going to make three. And by hook or by crook, I’m going to make four. The truth isn’t really that important to a lot of people.”
“Horizon” began as one movie in 1988 and was, originally, a “Butch and Sundance” brotherly two-hander. He almost got it made at Disney after 2003’s “Open Range,” but a dispute over a $5 million difference in budget had the entire thing scrapped. A few years, and many rewrites, later, he tried to turn into a limited series only to then change his mind and make four movies out of this story.
“Where are all you brave, rich billionaires?” Costner recently told GQ, fishing for investors for the third and fourth films. “I need somebody that’s impulsive, is emotional, has money, and wants to go west.”
At Cannes, Costner told me that he’d already shot nine days’ worth of footage this month on the third film, and that production had to temporarily be stopped for him to find more money. The first installment, of which premiered at Cannes, currently has a 27 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Set in the pre– and post–American Civil War, the film tackles the expansion of the American West. “Horizon: An American Saga” lands in theaters this summer, Chapter 1 on June 28 and Chapter 2 on August 16.