Kevin Costner’s Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 2 Loses Theatrical Release Date

Warner Bros. has removed Kevin Costner’s Horizon: An American Story Chapter 2 from the studio’s schedule, dropping it from its planned August release date after Chapter 1 proved a disappointment at the box office. Horizon: An American Saga Chapter 1 and 2 were filmed together, with plans to release them essentially back to back in theaters. The first chapter, which premiered in June, was one of a number of recent big-budget tentpoles that failed to ignite the box office. After earning just $11 million in its opening weekend, the movie has been limping through the rest of its theatrical run, earning just 

The plan is reportedly still to release Chapter 2 in theaters. There is no official release date on the late yet, as New Line Cinema, the Warner Bros. imprint that distributed the first movie, hopes to build excitement for the sequel once the original arrives on streaming. The third installment is currently in production.

“Territory Pictures and New Line Cinema have decided not to release Horizon: Chapter 2 on August 16 in order to give audiences a greater opportunity to discover the first installment of ‘Horizon’ over the coming weeks, including on PVOD and Max,” a New Line Cinema spokesperson told Variety, who broke the story. “We thank our exhibition partners for their continued support as moviegoers across the U.S. discover the film in its theatrical run.”

Horizon: An American Saga Chapter 1 and 2 is an epic Western set in the years during the U.S. Civil War. The project is part one of a planned four-part series from the filmmaker, with two movies already filmed and scheduled and then two more in the wings. It’s also the first big project from the Oscar-winning Man of Steel star since announcing his departure from the megahit Yellowstone. The first two movies are coming out so close together that they actually shared a theatrical poster, likely a model that we might see with the upcoming quartet of Beatles biopics.

Costner has said that he hopes to make four chapters by the time his Horizon experiment is all done. He fronted much of the films’ budget himself, presumably thinking that he would make the money back between licensing it for distribution and whatever it turns out to make.

“When no one wanted to make the first one, I got the bright idea to make four,” Costner joked when the trailer dropped earlier this year. “So I don’t know what’s wrong with me. But I wanted it to step away from what we usually see in Westerns where there’s a town that’s already there. No one knows how [the town] came to be. There’s a guy comes in off the horizon, if you will. We don’t know much about him, except that he has some skills he’d like to put behind him and this town ends up needing those stills desperately … Too often, it’s just a convenience for the hero guy to knock down a dumb guy.”

Costner stars alongside an impressive ensemble cast that includes Sienna Miller, Sam Worthington, Jena Malone, Owen Crow Shoe, Tatanka Means, Ella Hunt, Tim Guinee, Danny Huston, Colin Cunningham, Scott Haze, Tom Payne, Abbey Lee, Michael Rooker, Will Patton, Georgia MacPhail, Douglas Smith, Luke Wilson, Isabelle Fuhrman, Jamie Campbell Bower, Alejandro Edda, Wasé Winyan Chief, Michael Anganaro, Angus Macfadyen, Jon Beavers, Alex Nibley, Kathleen Quinlan, Etienne Kellici, Amos Jason Charging Cloud, Bodhi Okuma Linton, Gregory Cruz, James Russo, Jeff Fahey, David O’Hara, Chris Conner, Leroy M. Silva, Bernardo Velasco, Tom Everett, Glynn Turman, Giovanni Ribisi and more.

Horizon: An American Story Chapter 1 is set to release on VOD on July 16. There is no known release date for the film on disc or Max yet.