Critics pan Kevin Costner’s ‘Horizon’ saga as he reveals he put $38M and mortgaged property to make the film

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Kevin Costner enjoyed the screening of his latest project, ‘Horizon: An American Saga’ at the Cannes Film Festival this weekend, which also received a resounding standing ovation.

However, critics tore it apart while reviewing the multi-chapter epic Western film.

The 69-year-old actor, who also directed, produced, and co-wrote the film with Jon Baird, shared that he mortgaged his Santa Barbara property to make this movie a success. He also shared that he gambled $38 million from his own pocket to make the movie of his dreams.

What did critics say about Kevin Costner's ‘Horizon: An American Saga'?

Since Costner's movie is yet to be released, it would be hard to ignore the unimpressed critics' comments, per DailyMail.

“At least Horizon accomplishes one staggering feat: it makes one wonder if we were maybe a little too hard on The Postman,” wrote Richard Lawson for  Vanity Fair.

He felt ‘Horizon’ was “far from stately, or even coherent," instead it’s “a jumble of cliched plots rendered in washed-out color."

“It doesn’t feel like a film at all,” but  “a television season’s worth of characters and plot threads.”

Owen Gleiberman of Variety, also slammed Costner’s flick, “Doesn’t feel like a movie. It feels like the seedbed for a miniseries."

“As a stand-alone film (which it isn't, but let's pretend for a moment), 'Horizon' is by turns convoluted, ambitious, intriguing, and meandering. But it's never quite moving," he wrote. “It’s too busy laying down narrative tracks and hammering out the minutiae of situations that don’t feel like they’re leading anywhere special.”

Meanwhile, Peter Bradshaw from The Guardian said, it “doesn’t establish anything exciting for its various unresolved storylines, and doesn’t leave us suspensefully hanging for anything else.”

“Costner’s Civil-war set epic offers an old-fashioned celebration of the pioneer spirit - and a clutch of storylines that never quite have time to engage before the film moves on,” wrote Screen Daily’s Lee Marshall.

Kevin Costner struggled to find producers for ‘Horizon: An American Saga'

Amid all the criticism, Kevin Costner shared at Cannes Film Festival about the challenges he faced while making the ‘Horizon’.

“I don’t know why it’s so hard to get people to believe in the movie I wanted to make. … I don’t think anybody’s else’s movie is better than mine. I made it for people,” he stated.

“It’s a pattern that happens with me — with Dances With Wolves, Bull Durham, Field of Dreams, Open Range — the things I want to make are harder to make,” he said.

“I’d like to come back here with my third movie,” Costner hinted about Horizon Chapter 3, reported Deadline.

'Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1' is set for a June 28 release under the umbrella of Warner Bros, with the second coming on August 16. Costner told the outlet that Chapter 3 will begin production in May.