Kevin Costner has had one foot in the west for a while now, yet his Western swan song has yet to even release. That will eventually hit theaters in four separate parts, starting with Horizon: An American Saga‘s first chapter.
The first two chapters are headed to theaters within a few months of each other, allowing audiences to enjoy the first half of the story without waiting months and months for a fresh release. The first chapter is slated for a mid-summer release on June 28, with the second chapter debuting right around two months later on Aug. 16.
We’ll have to wait a bit longer for chapters three and four, but Western fans are already invested in the series. It’s clearly a passion project for Costner, who’s spent the last half-decade deeply entrenched in the American west. That passion for the genre didn’t start with his casting in Yellowstone, either. Costner’s been a staple of Westerns for most of his career, and — of his meager six television appearances — all of the memorable ones fall under the Western umbrella. This genre is Costner’s bread and butter, so it’s little wonder he’s been dreaming up a project of his own.
Every Yellowstone fan on the planet knows that it was Horizon that lured Costner away from the series, but they’re less certain about the two projects’ connections. They’re both Westerns, they both star Costner, and the 69-year-old star was — at least for a while — working on them in tandem. But does that mean the two releases are related?
Are Yellowstone and Horizon related?
Yellowstone is, for many viewers, Costner’s most successful project to date. That’s a hard claim to make, given the actor’s lengthy and successful career, but it’s certainly true to say that Yellowstone made Costner relevant again. His career was on a slow downward trend ahead of the mega-popular neo-Western and his involvement in Yellowstone will assuredly aid him in getting Horizon off the ground.
But, despite their similar bents and Costner’s dual involvement, that doesn’t mean Horizon and Yellowstone have anything else in common. The pair are completely separate projects and take place in entirely different timelines. They technically take place in the same world, since both are set in the real United States, but the events they cover, families they follow, and storylines they tell are completely unrelated.
Don’t expect any crossovers between Yellowstone and Horizon, but fans of Costner’s previous Western work will almost certainly find plenty to enjoy in his fresh four-part series. This is his passion project, one he’s been dreaming up for decades. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but — while Yellowstone fans won’t be catching a glimpse of John Dutton in the series — they’re sure to eat up the captivating story Costner’s put to screen in Horizon.