Netflix Wants to Buy Kevin Costner's Horizon: Can It Save the Franchise?

Kevin Costners famously put everything on the line to make his Horizon: An American Saga movie series: he dropped out of Yellowstone, mortgaged his house, and spent tens of millions of his own money on it. But it’s been a while since the first film premiered, and so far, it doesn’t look too good — at least, financially.

But there are companies out there that just love throwing millions of dollars at filmmakers, and one such company recently approached Costner, rumors suggest.

Netflix Wants to Buy the Horizon Series

Even if Horizon: An American Saga hasn’t been working wonders at the box office, it’s still Kevin Costner — and it’s still a huge project with vast potential. Prime Video has already tried (and failed) to buy the streaming rights to the saga; now, reports claim Netflix has stepped up, offering Costner another deal with generous terms.

According to World of Reel, Netflix is ready to spend rather lavishly to get the streaming rights to Horizon. Apart from purchasing the rights, the platform is ready to partially fund the third and fourth installments of the franchise and potentially work on a TV show following the Saga after the movies are done. But not all’s good here.

Netflix has never been interested in theatrical releases, and that alone might turn Costner off from their offer. But on the other hand, he could really use the funding.

Netflix Could Be Costner’s Only Chance

Let’s get this straight: Costner and his investors have spent a lot on the first two Horizon movies, and they still have two more to go. In the meantime, Chapter 1 has only earned just under $30M worldwide — against its over $100M budget. That movie is a box office tragedy, and the saga can’t keep going like this for long.

Netflix, on the other hand, cares little for box office revenue: it’s a streaming platform. Kevin Costner has stated numerous times he wasn’t making Horizon to turn a profit but to create a legacy… But creating such an expensive legacy is costly. He might just have to work with Netflix to cover the expenses for the last two installments.

So far, Costner has been acting confidently, and after turning down Prime Video, he can easily do the same with Netflix’s offer. In the end, it comes down to the director’s ability to attract more investors, and that ability is only going to keep dwindling as time goes by, and Chapter 1 keeps losing tens of millions of dollars.

Source: World of Reel