After suddenly being pulled from the U.S. release calendar, Kevin Costner’s “Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 2″ is now set to world premiere at the Venice Film Festival. The film will be screened out of competition on September 7th, which is the last day of the festival.
This is another risky move on the part of Costner. If you remember, the first ‘Horizon’ premiered at Cannes to very mixed reviews and that set the tone for the film’s doomed fate at the box-office. Doing it all over again, but this time at Venice, Costner is hoping that he’ll have better luck in Italy with the sequel.
There is currently no release date for ‘Horizon 2,’ which was originally supposed to be released in August but was pulled from the schedule by Warner Bros after the first instalment failed to lure audiences into buying a movie ticket for it. Streamers like Netflix and Amazon have made offers to acquire the films, but it doesn’t sound like Costner is budging. He wants theatrical rollouts.
In the meantime, Costner has repeatedly stated that he will be shooting ‘Chapter 3’ in August/September. He already shot nine days’ worth of footage in April before production had to temporarily shut down due to lack of funds. If Costner has indeed found the money to continue filming the third instalment, there is no guarantee that it will even get released.