After the box office failure of the first film, the oldest film festival in the world hosts the world premiere of “Chapter 2” of the epic saga in the American West.
Kevin Costner’s epic saga is once again showing signs of life with the announcement this Wednesday of the world premiere of “Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 2” at the Venice Film Festival.
The out-of-competition session at the 81st edition of the world’s oldest film festival will be on September 7 and, in an unprecedented situation, earlier in the same day “Chapter 1” will be screened, which had its world premiere at the rival Cannes Film Festival in May.
The saga directed and starring Kevin Costner crosses the stories of settlers and colonized, whites and indigenous people, in a violent and dramatic West, in the great migrations during the American Civil War (1861-1865).
It should be recalled that the box office failure of the first film in theaters, with just over $33 million worldwide since June 28, led to the cancellation of the sequel’s premiere on August 16.
The justification of the studios involved was that this would allow “to give the public a greater opportunity to discover the first installment of ‘Horizon'” with its release in digital formats. There is still no new date for the big screen.
There are rumors of Netflix’s interest in staying with the saga: the plan is to make four films and a few days of the third have already been shot, with the forecast to resume in August.
In the official statement, Costner points out that “my dream has always been to present ‘Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 2’ at the Venice Film Festival”.
“The reason they now decided to show ‘Chapter’ One earlier in the day and then their world premiere of ‘Chapter Two’ that night shows not only their belief in how the two films work together, but their support for the vision of a great director. […] It is with satisfaction and enthusiasm that I return to the Venice Film Festival. Praise be to cinema and those who are willing to defend them.”
Referring to the “great pleasure and honor” of receiving the two films, Alberto Barbera, artistic director of the festival, highlighted that “this recent addition to the Venice Film Festival program pays a sincere and respectful tribute to the visionary project of a great actor and director, who invested in the epic reconstruction of the crucial years of the country’s founding, diving beyond myth in search of an authenticity capable of rescuing a part of history in its complex and contradictory reality”.
The budget of the saga will be more than 100 million dollars, a figure described by analysts as quite high when the target audience is older. In addition, the first film was hampered by being three hours long and the reactions of critics and audiences were lukewarm.
Costner has publicly revealed that he spent $38 million of his own money, including mortgaging his Southern California mansion.
It is known that part of the budget was amortized by the sale of the film in the international market, but it is still necessary to include marketing, which also ‘comes out of the pocket’ of director and actor, since Warner Bros. only ensures distribution in North America.
