After premiering Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 in Cannes last May, Kevin Costner is today at the Lido for the world premiere of the second installment of his Manifest Destiny blockbuster franchise. Directed by and starring Costner and starring Sienna Miller, Sam Worthington, Giovanni Ribisi, Isabelle Fuhrman and Luke Wilson, Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 2 will be screened out of competition at the Venice Film Festival this afternoon before Costner met with the press.
Costner co-wrote the two-part epic with co-writer John Baird and is also producing under his Territory Pictures banner. The scripts for the third and fourth films are completed and ready to shoot. The Oscar-winner has a lot of interest in this passion project. He previously told Deadline that he plans to shell out $98 million himself for the first three films, and that he expects to top $100 million in financing for the fourth. Today, he sounded optimistic about the future.
Chapter 2’s arrival at the Venice Film Festival comes after New Line postponed its domestic release from August 16th following Chapter 1’s lackluster box office performance. Costner acknowledged that it “wasn’t a runaway success,” but noted that “a lot of movies have stood the test of time in that way.”
Still, Costner, who recently told Deadline that Chapter 2 is on track to be released by the end of the year, seemed unfazed by the change today. “It was the studio’s decision to release it in six weeks, and then the studio’s decision prevented us from releasing it,” he said, ultimately finding himself back on his own plan. “I’d always wanted to release movies five or six months apart so that I could get to Venice… And then when it got to six weeks, it turned out I couldn’t get here… But it’s the miracle of life that it happened… My plan was always to take it to Venice, and all of a sudden it happened.”
When asked about the future of the film series, Costner explained, “If there’s anything to look forward to from Part 2, it’s that you’ll realize that Part 2 is going to be harder than Part 1. It’s hard to go west. And Part 3 is going to be the same. It’s going to be hard. But I can tell you this: Part 3 is going to be devastating. It’s going to be devastating because you start to get to know all these characters and life is going to keep hitting them. And you’re going to find out.” He expressed his eagerness to move forward with Chapter 3, saying, “We’ve got to hurry. We’ve got to get that rock back down the hill again. We’ve got to get our hands on that rock again and start pushing it up. It’s a rope that can’t be let go.” Then, amid applause, his voice trembling a little, he added, “Right now I don’t know how we’re going to make a third chapter, but we’re going to make one.”
When asked why he chose this subject, Costner told reporters, “I love the American journey, the American promise. People leave Europe and cross the Atlantic and see something they can’t believe – a huge continent with no buildings. And the eyes of the world are opened and they come to America with a promise. It’s a march across America from sea to shining sea that took about 300, 400 years, your ancestors did it, my ancestors did it. And they come to an empty land, and there’s nothing there but animals and people who have chosen to live lightly on the land, and there’s a struggle because they don’t want to let it go. So one promise is being fulfilled and another is being lost.”
“There’s something about the West,” Costner muses. “It’s not a place like Disneyland, but a place where hard times happen in an instant. I really wanted to tell that story, and I realized the best way to tell that story was ultimately through the eyes of a woman. Women are at the center of every storyline in Horizon. That’s the kind of film I wanted to tell the world, and to remind my country that it’s a struggle, that it’s part of our history.”
However, he said, “Horizon is not a message to my country. It is a reminder to my country how difficult it was for people to make this journey. It is not a political message to anyone. You know, the film speaks to us, and when the lights go out, the film speaks to the heart of each and every one of us. We all see the same things in the darkness, we all live the same dream, but it will have a different meaning for all of us.”
Costner also recalled his trip to Venice 35 years ago in Silverado, saying, “There was only one interview.” He eventually walked out of that interview when someone told him that Fandango, a film he starred in that same year, was playing at a nearby cinema. “I said, ‘No way,'” he recalled, adding, “I walked into a packed theater, and they were sitting in the aisles, and the film was just about to end. The lights came up, they announced my name, and they turned around. I never thought that would happen, and the people of Venice applauded the film, because the film was what mattered. And then they turned to me and they saw me, and I was a different person than I was before. And then we left that theater, and the whole audience walked out onto the street… And I thought, I’m making movies for the world. I may be making American movies, but everything I do for them is about action, and I think action works all over the world.”
Horizon: An American Saga Chapter One will also be screening at Venice, with Coster previously saying the festival’s decision “signals not only our belief that the two films will blend well together, but also our support for the director’s vision.”
