Actor and director Kevin Costner was reeling from a major theatrical dud with his latest Western epic, “Horizon: An American Saga,” with the second part of the film being yanked from the release schedule by the studio. However, it looks like the movie is suddenly making a massive comeback, Rocky Balboa style, after having huge success as a video-on-demand release earlier this week.
In fact, “Horizon” took the number one spot for video releases on major VOD streaming services, indicating there is indeed an audience for the film out there. And that’s a good thing, especially given the pro-Christianity message of the project, which details the travails faced by settlers attempting to tame the West.
via The Daily Caller’s latest report:
Who’d have thought Kevin Costner would suddenly find career-reviving success on television? Except for the millions of “Yellowstone” fans around the world, no one expected Costner’s “Horizon” to fail so hard in the box office, bringing in a measly $28.5 million in the U.S. and Canada after its fourth opening weekend, according to IndieWire.
Considering the estimated budget for the movie was around $100 million. This was not great news for Costner, who put more than $30 million of his own money and his reputation into “Horizon’s” success. He ostracized all of his “Yellowstone” fans in the process. But there may be a silver lining.
As we reported in early July, “Horizon’s” failure was helped along by the time of year. Who wants to sit in a sweaty theater in the middle of summer? No one. We want to be home.
It appears that releasing the movie on streaming services was the right path to take. It hit the top spot over the course of its first weekend on release, with people dropping $20 to check it out. So yeah, I guess the critics were actually right this time around. It seems Costner made a very, very expensive TV movie.
I think the smart move, given the success this has had on streaming, is to just go ahead and make the second part of “Horizon” a video-on-demand release too. Chances are good he’ll make a lot more bank that way, which could result in his being able to sign a lucrative deal with streamers for the release of all four planned entries in the series.
Of course, it’s possible that this being such a huge success on television might actually be bad news to Costner who comes from a generation that viewed having a career on TV as a sign your career was nearing its end. However, that’s not the case today.
In many respects, television programming today exceeds film in quality and is a better platform for long-form storytelling. Costner would do well to shed the old school way of looking at television and utilize the platform to help tell the story he wants to tell about the settling of the Wild West.
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Having a television audience who is interested in your project is better than having no audience at all, right?