A major change for Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 2 belies a mistake made by Kevin Costner. Costner, who recently departed the cast of the Taylor Sheridan neo-Western series Yellowstone, is the co-writer, director, and star of the Western movie franchise, which is intended to span four installments. The massive ensemble cast of the project also includes Sienna Miller, Sam Worthington, Michael Rooker, Danny Huston, Jena Malone, Abbey Lee, Jamie Campbell Bower, Giovanni Ribisi, Will Patton, Luke Wilson, Ella Hunt, and Isabelle Fuhrman.

Between them, the first two movies have a combined production budget of $100 million, with more than $20 million of that total coming from Costner himself. The upcoming Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 2 is the only other completed installment considering the fact that Chapter 3 is in production and Chapter 4 is in development. However, the movie has been removed from the schedule following the release of Chapter 1 on June 28. The original plan was for the sequel to premiere just seven weeks later, on August 16.

Horizon: An American Saga 2 Releasing So Soon After Chapter 1 Was Always A Bad Idea

The Market Was Already Oversaturated With The Kevin Costner Franchise

This swift cancellation following the Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 release was perhaps inevitable. There are quite a few reasons that releasing the first two movies so close together did not make sense. For one thing, the following pair of sequels are both incomplete, meaning that the franchise would be immediately unable to keep up a consistent release pattern. There is also precedent for similar movies to fail at the box office. In fact, something extremely close to this situation already happened in 1994 when the previous Kevin Costner Western Wyatt Earp premiered just six months after Tombstone.

The earlier movie featured the same characters, a smaller budget, a shorter runtime, and a stronger critical reception, providing strong competition for the 1994 title. It is in large part credited for the financial failure of Kevin Costner’s Wyatt Earp, which only earned $55.9 million against its $63 million budget. Another, more recent example of a similar release also shows that longer delays can pay dividends, as MaXXXine, the two-years-later sequel to 2022’s X and Pearl, just earned the strongest opening weekend of the trilogy in spite of the fact that it opened in fewer theaters than either previous installment.

Horizon: An American Saga’s Box Office Made A Chapter 2 Delay Inevitable

Horizon Has Fallen Far Short Of Its Production Budget

The underwhelming box office of Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 was likely another huge factor in this delay. Presuming its production budget was roughly half of the movies’ combined price tag, it likely needs to make $100 million or more in order to end up in the black. However, it opened to $11 million and has only earned roughly $23.4 million overall at the time of writing. It is an extreme unlikelihood that the movie will come anywhere close to being profitable by the end of its run.

This release delay is likely meant to allow audiences time to catch up with Chapter 1 on VOD and avoid the sequel following in its financial footsteps. If the release had gone on as planned, audiences would only have been given mere weeks to catch up with the first three-hour movie. Because Chapter 2 is a direct continuation, it likely wouldn’t have been inviting to newcomers, meaning that its built-in audience would have been quite small.

Will Horizon: An American Saga Chapter 2 Be Successful After The Delay?

The Odds Are Stacked Against The Upcoming Kevin Costner Western

It is possible that this theatrical delay will pay off as intended, allowing more audiences to find the movie and thus increase general interest in the sequel during its eventual release. This may particularly be the case for the Yellowstone audience, who are used to seeing Kevin Costner on their screens at home and may not have felt encouraged to venture out to the theaters for the first movie. However, Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 reviews may provide a major reason why this gambit still won’t work.

Although audiences have given it a solidly Fresh score of 71% on Rotten Tomatoes, critics have largely been negative, giving it an official splat on the review aggregator platform with a 48% score. If Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 2 significantly improves on the original movie’s score, that could provide a major enticement for skittish audiences. However, given the fact that it features the same production team as Chapter 1, it seems unlikely that the sequel could be such a vast improvement.