Serialized westerns have been around since the very first days of Hollywood. Sure, TV might have claims on perfecting the form — it’s hard not to make something like Lonesome Dove without totally justifying the small screen as a way to tell long-form Western stories — but it remains a proud cinematic tradition, one that’s slowly fallen to the wayside over the decades. Kevin Costner sees this as a failure of ambition and imagination. Having single-handedly saved Paramount Network and spawned an entire franchise alongside Taylor Sheridan, Costner’s probably the only dude (aside from Quentin Tarantino, who chose to serialize Hateful Eight when that hit Netflix) with the capital — Yellowstone capital, to be sure — to get some studio to greenlight an epic two-part Western. And sure enough, the dude who brought us Dances With Wolves, Wyatt Earp and The Postman (we have an aggressively frustrating soft spot for that movie) did so, and it’s coming out in a few months. The duology is called Horizon: An American Saga, and Warner Bros. dropped a trailer for it. And it looks… pretty good?
Peep it:
Here’s a synopsis, and we’ve included the cast list because we just want you to get a sense of how big this project is:
“Academy Award-winning visionary filmmaker Kevin Costner directs New Line Cinema’s vast ‘Horizon: An American Saga’ Chapters One and Two, a multi-faceted chronicle covering the Civil War expansion and settlement of the American West. A story of America too big for one film, this true cinematic event also stars Costner, who co-writes with Jon Baird (‘The Explorers Guild’) and produces through his Territory Pictures.
In the great tradition of Warner Bros. Pictures’ iconic Westerns, ‘Horizon: An American Saga’ explores the lure of the Old West and how it was won — and lost — through the blood, sweat and tears of many. Spanning the four years of the Civil War, from 1861 to 1865, Costner’s ambitious cinematic adventure will take audiences on an emotional journey across a country at war with itself, experienced through the lens of families, friends and foes all attempting to discover what it truly means to be the United States of America.
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.“
Jesus Christ.
Well, the first part of Horizon: An American Saga hits theaters on June 28. You won’t have to wait long for the second, however — the conclusion will also hit theaters two months later on August 16. If there’s one thing that’s sure to bring the older folks back to theaters, it’s probably this, so we’re not gonna bet against Costner on this one, at least until we’re able to see Part One for ourselves.