Kevin Costner presented the U. S. premiere of Chapter 2 at the 40th annual Santa Barbara Film Festival.
Kevin Costner’s Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1 was a multiple winner at the 2025 C&I Movie Awards, scoring in the categories for Best Picture, Best Actor and Director (Costner), Best Actress (Sienna Miller) and Best Screenplay (Costner, John Baird). All of which, of course, makes many of us even more impatient to see Chapter 2.
For the benefit of those who tuned in late: Horizon — which Costner has envisioned right from the start as a four-movie epic — focuses on a roughly 15-year period before and after the Civil War to dramatize, even-handedly and excitingly, how the allure and promise of new lives in a new land fueled an unshakable belief in what has become known, for better or worse, as Manifest Destiny. Some of the characters journey westward to fulfill dreams. Others move along to escape lives that have become nightmares.
And still others — specifically, the Native Americans who inhabit the lands that the settlers covet — must cope with the repeated appearances by these intruders.
“I saw How the West Was Won when I was seven,” Costner told C&I in an interview for our July 2024 cover story. “And I think if it could engage a 7-year-old boy to not look at his watch, and be able to watch the screen on his own, it just informed me that if things are interesting, if they’re compelling, if the screen picture is continuing to change and when it changes, it changes to something equally interesting, and then it starts to form a weave and suddenly these things that you were willing to watch on an individual basis began to somehow get closer and closer together, and then all of a sudden you see intersections — I love that kind of storytelling. And that’s what I have tried to do with Horizon.”
Unfortunately, after Chapter 1 opened last June to mixed reviews (51 percent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) and disappointing box office numbers, Costner’s Territory Pictures and distribution partner New Line Cinema decided to yank Chapter 2 from its scheduled Aug. 16 opening date, in the hope of generating more interest in the first film during its streaming and home video release.
It can be argued that this strategy worked — up to a point. MAX recorded an impressive viewership for the first chapter of Costner’s proposed four-part epic when it premiered on the streamer (and newly available as Premium VOD). More recently, the movie was a global hit throughout the month of January on Netflix.
Even now, however, no theatrical release date has been set for Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 2. The western drama had its world premiere last September at the Venice Film Festival, where it was screened along with Chapter 1, and greeted with a three-minute standing ovation by festivalgoers. Last Friday, Chapter 2 had its U.S. premiere at the 40th annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival, where several notables — including Quentin Tarantino and Zachary Levi — were in attendance, and Costner himself was on hand for a post-screening Q&A.
“The people who traveled across the ocean to America were in search of a dream,” he said. “If you were mean enough and tough enough, you could make it yours. And that was a nightmare for the people who had been here for 15,000 years. And this land was contested. It was a bad ending for the Native Americans who existed here and had found some equilibrium. But I’m not embarrassed about that, I’m just disturbed we don’t know more about it.”
Costner returns in Chapter 2 as Hayes Ellison, a traditionally laconic, straight-shooting western protagonist who never goes looking for trouble — goes out of his way to avoid it, actually — yet finds it follows him like a faithful dog. How dangerous is this dude? Put it this way: His suspensefully protracted faceoff with Jamie Campbell Bower’s trigger-happy outlaw was a highlight of Chapter 1.
Among the other cast members back for the second installment: Sienna Miller as Frances Kittredge, a formidable pioneer woman determined to make new lives for herself and her daughter after her husband and son were killed during an Apache attack on their settlement; and Sam Worthington as Trent Gephardt, an Army officer who nobly puts duty ahead of romance, despite his attraction to Frances Kittredge.
Also: Luke Wilson as Matthew Van Weyden, a passenger aboard a westward-bound wagon train who reluctantly takes over a leader of the pioneers during their journey; and Michael Rooker as Thomas Riordan, a grizzled Army sergeant major whose demeanor and Irish accent may remind you of the cavalry soldiers Victor McLaglen used to play in John Ford movies.
Again: No date has yet been announced for the U.S. theatrical run of Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 2. It should be noted, however, that Costner has begun filming Chapter 3. And rumors continue to circulate that Netflix will step in and take over the franchise — thereby helping Costner cover the immense investment he has already made in his dream project.
The streamer, a source close to the project told The New York Post, is “the only company that can provide Kevin the resources to finish this saga in the next eighteen months without having to cut too many corners.
“It’s a big check to write, but if the first movie continues to perform well for Netflix’s viewers, the expectation around town and even within Kevin’s Hollywood circle is that Netflix will eventually step up and buy the rights to the whole series and take Kevin out of debt.”
Watch this space for further developments.
