General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20267 min read

Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1

Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 is a 2024 American Western film directed, co-written, produced by, and starring Kevin Costner, and the first installment of a planned four-film saga about the settlement of the American West before and after the Civil War. Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures through New Line Cinema, it runs 181 minutes, is rated R, and was released in United States theaters on June 28, 2024 after premiering out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival.¹^•²^•³

Key fact	Detail
Director / writers	Kevin Costner; screenplay by Jon Baird and Kevin Costner; story by Jon Baird, Kevin Costner, and Mark Kasdan¹^•⁴
Release	Cannes premiere May 19, 2024 (out of competition); US theaters June 28, 2024; Max streaming August 23, 2024³^•²^•⁴
Runtime / rating	3 hours 1 minute (181 minutes); R²
Principal cast	Kevin Costner (Hayes Ellison), Sienna Miller (Frances Kittredge), Sam Worthington (Trent Gephhardt), Jena Malone, Danny Huston, Luke Wilson, Isabelle Fuhrman, Owen Crow Shoe (Pionsenay)¹^•⁵
Financing	Costner mortgaged property and put an estimated $38 million of his own money toward the $100 million production of the first two films⁶
Box office	$38,835,702 worldwide ($29,035,702 domestic, $9,800,000 international); $11,052,561 domestic opening⁷
Reception	51% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer and 70% among verified audiences²
Sequel status	Chapter 2 was pulled from its August 16, 2024 theatrical date and, despite premiering at Venice on September 7, 2024, has had no confirmed US release⁸

Spoilers

Story and setting

The movie depicts, from several angles, 15 years of westward settlement and growth in the United States both before and after the Civil War, and Chapter 1 opens in 1859, shortly before that war truly took hold.⁷^•⁹ Most of the action is confined to Arizona and Wyoming, territory just beginning to be colonized by white settlers amid tension with the Indigenous population. The settlement called Horizon, in Arizona's San Pedro Valley, exists as an act of provocation: the U.S. military has warned against living on Apache land far outside the country's jurisdiction, and an Apache attack on the community comes early in the film, leaving Sienna Miller's character Frances Kittredge and her daughter among the few survivors.¹⁰

The Venice festival synopsis describes the saga as chronicling "the birth, death and rebirth of a river settlement in nineteenth century New Mexico Territory," told through the entwined perspectives of settlers and soldiers, rail magnates and cattle traders, Indigenous Americans and Chinese migrant workers.¹ The story is fictional, though rooted in real Civil War-era history.⁹ Costner has said he realized the foundation of American towns was a much bigger story than one film could hold, and that he could not make a movie on the American West without Indigenous people being involved.¹¹

Development and production

Costner commissioned an original Western set in Horizon in 1988 and began pursuing production in 2003, after filming Open Range. With co-writer Jon Baird he re-developed the script beginning in 2012 as a four-part film series, and production began in earnest in early 2022.¹^•⁶^•¹² Chapters 1 and 2 were filmed back to back.¹³

The financing was personal. Costner mortgaged property, including his California ranch, to put an estimated $38 million toward the $100 million production of the first two films.⁶^•¹⁴ The production shot in Utah, in the Greater Zion region, where the state film office welcomed an epic Western as a continuation of Utah's film history in the genre.¹⁵ Chapter 1 marked Costner's return to directing for the first time since Open Range (2003), revisiting Civil War-era America, the setting of his 1990 directorial debut Dances with Wolves.⁴ The crew included cinematographer J. Michael Muro, production designer Derek R. Hill, and composer John Debney.¹

Release and box office

The film premiered out of competition at the 77th Cannes Film Festival on May 19, 2024, and Warner Bros. released it in North American theaters on June 28, 2024, with Chapter 2 originally scheduled for August 16.³^•¹⁶ The domestic opening was $11,052,561, and the film finished with $29,035,702 domestically and $38,835,702 worldwide.⁷ Against a budget reported at $50 million for Chapter 1 alone, the film grossed just $38 million worldwide.¹³

After the poor theatrical debut, New Line Cinema pulled Chapter 2 from its August 16, 2024 release date, framing the withdrawal as an effort to give audiences time to discover the first film.⁸^•¹⁷ Chapter 1 began streaming exclusively on Max on August 23, 2024.⁴ It later moved to Netflix on December 30, 2024, where it became a streaming hit, climbing into the Top 10 across streaming services.¹³^•¹⁸

Reception

Critics were divided. The Rotten Tomatoes critics consensus states that "Kevin Costner doesn't lack for ambition as he sketches this frontier saga across the widest of canvases, but Horizon's first chapter proves too diffuse in scope for it to satisfy as a self-contained endeavor," and the film scored 51% among critics against 70% among verified audiences.² Common criticisms centered on the large roster of characters and the episodic structure: reviewers noted that the film's three storylines barely intersect by the end, and that the film functions more as setup for later chapters than as a self-contained story.¹⁹^•²⁰ Positive notices praised the scale and craft, with Sight & Sound calling it "an unashamedly old-fashioned western" in which Chinese and Indigenous peoples are portrayed sympathetically, and TheWrap highlighting J. Michael Muro's Utah vistas and John Debney's score.²¹^•² Some critics argued the treatment of the Apache as attackers was a step backward from the sympathetic portrayal in Dances with Wolves.²²

The unfinished saga

Chapter 2, filmed back to back with Chapter 1, premiered at the Venice International Film Festival on September 7, 2024, and screened again at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival on February 7, 2025, but it has had no confirmed US theatrical, streaming, digital, or physical-media release.⁸^•²³ Chapters 3 and 4 were originally expected in 2025, but no financing or release has been announced, and Costner said in November 2024 that he was seeking funding while working on Chapter 3.²⁴^•²³ The theatrical failure followed by strong streaming performance has kept attention on whether the remaining chapters will ever reach audiences.¹⁸

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026