Follow us on Google News
Get the latest updates directly in your Google News feed
For all its scandals and complexities,Yellowstonehas done one thing right by resurrecting the Western career of Kevin Costner. The actor has been in love with the idea of the Old West more than his own survival (how else can one explain the decision to fund his savings and assets into a failing project). But money can only go so far before the intended audience finds out their cinematic taste is better invested elsewhere.
In the case ofHorizon: An American Saga, Costner isn’t left with much choice but to let his creativity and passion out. The four-part Western chronicle is a genre within a genre – it calls back to the expansive American Midwest on the big screen while also serving as a long-form style of storytelling in film. As such, if the Western fails to resonate with viewers, perhaps it can still find its credit a few decades down the line as the last-standing epic of the now-defunct genre.
Kevin Costner and His Ironic Luck With Westerns
If not for the two gifted writers, Michael Blake and Taylor Sheridan,Kevin Costnerwould have always undervalued his worth in the film industry. The actor, an otherwise strong screen presence, has singlehandedly sent his career on a downward spiral due to his unhealthy obsession with Westerns. Fortunately,Dances With Wolves(Blake) andYellowstone(Sheridan) act as proof that not all his efforts were in vain.
On the other hand, every other venture of his, including the 1994 movieWyatt Earphas served against his favor, discredited his worth as an actor, tanked his box office value, and led to the death of Westerns as a genre. While it lives on through the modern efforts of filmmakers (WestworldandYellowstone), the era of theAmerican Old West is officially dead, and cruel as it may be, no one can be held more responsible than Costner himself. And he knows it too.
The actor has been thede factoface of the genre since Clint Eastwood hung his spurs and his cape and his infamous gunslinger machismo back in the 60s. Although Eastwood returned sparingly in the ’80s and ’90s, there was never a true face of the Western until Kevin Costner and Kurt Russell stepped into the picture. However, while Russell recognized the artistic potential in a project, Costner dove headfirst into a project that told the greater (not better) story.
Taylor Sheridan Was Inspired by The Godfather to Keep Kevin Costner Away from 1 Actor: ‘He wasn’t attempting to look or act like Marlon Brando’
Costner’s first mistake was to turn downTombstonein favor ofWyatt Earp, the Lawrence Kasdan-directed mess that is officially recognized as the rotten apple that infected the whole genre. The 3-hour-long movie served more as a historical documentary, attempting to compress the entirety of Earp’s life into a single film, and appearing incohesive and clunky as a result rather than an impressive epic foretelling the life and trials of the infamous outlaw lawman.
Wyatt Earp: Frontier Hero That Killed the Western
A legendary frontiersman of the American Oldwest, Wyatt Earp served several roles in a single lifetime. He was a lawman, a gunslinger, a con man, a gambler, as well as a saloonkeeper, but most of all, he was an outlaw and an avenger. Famous for being an iron-fisted and feared US Marshal who traveled from town to town to keep the peace and was unafraid to hunt down outlaws before becoming one himself, the colorful life of Wyatt Earp was too expansive to condense into one film alone.
In aGQinterview held in May 2024, the actor expressed his regret about the film, saying:
I love Wyatt, or I just love that movie. We got into a level of competition with Tombstone. A good friend said, ‘Look, we can postpone this movie. We don’t wanna compete.’ And I said, ‘Look, I’m sure this writer, director wants to make this movie, let them.’ And then this kind of space race started. And I always regretted that there was this kind of weird competition, and it was a fun movie, Tombstone, but it’s too bad it went the way it went.
Branded either as a frontier hero or a murderous outlaw, Earp’s life was too complex at its core to serve as a black-and-white narrative for Costner’s film. His efforts to humanize the outlaw gunslinger came off as forced while the movie itself served as a pale imitation of Kurt Russell’sTombstone, a film that premiered only 6 months earlier and which is widely considered one of the best Westerns of all time.
Kevin Costner’s Lightning in a Bottle Moment Made His Best Movie But That Won’t Happen Again for Horizon: ‘I’m going to make this movie’
For all the mistakes thatWyatt Earppacked in its oversaturated and jumbled plot, Kevin Costner pays the price as his own failure from 30 years ago comes back to haunt him today.Wyatt Earp‘s failure served as a reminder for Hollywood to step away from the days of old and focus on the sci-fi dystopia of the future. In an era dominated by superheroes and science fiction,Horizondoesn’t stand a chance to secure an audience, let alone engage Hollywood enough to reinvest in the genre of a bygone era.
Wyatt EarpandHorizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1are available to rent/buy on Prime Video and Apple TV.
Diya Majumdar
Senior Writer
Articles Published :2410
Diya Majumdar is a Senior Content Writer at FandomWire with over 2000 published articles on the website. Since 2022, she has been working as an entertainment journalist with a special focus on films and pop culture.Among the countless genres and themes of Hollywood, the ones that particularly favor Diya’s tastes include Game of Thrones, DC, and well-aged thrillers and classics.
