LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - APRIL 09: Kevin Costner attends Warner Bros. Pictures' "The Big Picture," a ... [+]
Kevin Costner’s Horizon: An American Saga has added caffeine to the promotional strategy to market the actor-filmmaker’s upcoming Western epic.
Green Mountain Coffee Roasters announced in a press release in November 2023 that it was teaming with the double Oscar winner to add the “Horizon Blend by Kevin Costner” to its coffee line to help promote Horizon: An American Saga.
The first two of four planned Horizon movies will be released this summer, with Chapter 1 set for a June 28 release, while Chapter 2 is scheduled to hit theaters on August 16.
Turning to coffee is an unusual move in promotional efforts for a summer movie, where studios generally rely on action figures, custom popcorn buckets, cereal boxes, T-shirts and other merchandise to help market their films.
Green Mountain describes the Horizon Blend by Kevin Costner as a “bold and smoky dark roast.”
The “bold” description appears fitting for Costner’s Horizon films, beginning with Chapter 1, which has a running time of 3 hours, 1 minute. Plus, like many previous Costner productions, the actor-filmmaker has sunk his own money into the Horizon saga, which he hopes to make a four-chapter film series.
Discussing the budget with Deadline ahead of the world premiere of Chapter 1 at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, Costner said, “I’m on schedule right now at $98 million, and when I do the fourth film, it will push me over $100 million.”
Because of his financing efforts, the Horizon Cannes debut on May 19 won’t be as splashy as most Hollywood film premieres. His co-star Sienna Miller will be in attendance with Costner, though, along with a few other key players.
“Because I’m financing this and doing a lot of this myself, in this instance it was just going to be me and Sienna,” Costner told Deadline. “And then I got to thinking about it and I’m going to bring all the women. I sent an email to all the guys, that I’m taking the six girls. They’re never celebrated enough.”
Among the six actors Costner mentioned are Ella Hunt, Abbey Lee, Isabelle Fuhrman and Wasé Chief. More cast members are welcome to join them if they happen to be there.
“Anyone else that happens to be in Europe, I’ll get you a ticket,” Costner told Deadline. “But I’m not a studio.”
Horizon: An American Saga, however, will be distributed domestically by a studio—Warner Bros. Pictures.
What is ‘Horizon: An American Saga’ About?
The official logline for the Cannes premiere of Horizon: An American Saga reads, “Oscar-winning director Kevin Costner chronicles the incredible epic journey of the expansion of the American West, before and after the Civil War. Between the Native Americans who saw their lands getting colonized and those who were determined to settle there, sometimes at any cost, history is being written.”
Costner, of course, is no stranger to either directing and/or starring in movie and TV Westerns. He starred in and directed Dances with Wolves, which earned him Oscars for Best Director and Best Picture as one of the film’s producers.
His other credits in the genre include Silverado, Open Range, Hatfields & McCoys and most recently, the neo-Western Yellowstone.
The actor-director also produces Horizon: An American Saga, where he is joined by a huge ensemble cast.
In addition to the stars joining Costner at Cannes, Chapter 1 also features Sam Worthington, Thomas Haden Church, Giovanni Ribisi, Michael Rooker, Kathleen Quinlan, Will Patton, Danny Huston and Jamie Campbell Bower.
