Kevin Costner’s $50 Million Western Flop Is Now a New Streaming Darling
The actor’s ambitious franchise is regaining its hopes for a brighter future.
Kevin Costner didn’t have the time of his life last year with a major money loss from his new big project, but this time things do seem to be more positive.
Back in 2024, the actor introduced the first chapter of his Horizon: An American Saga franchise, but all the enthusiasm soon turned into despair when the movie flopped in the theatres, garnering $38 million against the budget of $50 million.
The franchise might have already been seen as an idea doomed to fail entirely, but, just like with many other controversial movies, the streaming came along and worked wonders. Now Horizon: An American Saga — Part 1 is a new streaming record breaker, and this is likely to become a promising update for the franchise’s future.
Horizon: An American Saga — Part 1 Is the First Most Watched Movie of 2025
This isn’t a new phenomenon, and the movie has just joined a long list of flicks that bombed in the box office, but still found love and fame once they were released on streaming.
Naturally, the film became a massive hit back in August when it moved to Max soon after finishing its bad run in theatres, and since then has remained quite a popular choice among Max’s subscribers.
Netflix saw it and took action, acquiring the rights for Horizon: An American Saga — Part 1 and dropping it on its platform this January, thus giving the film a much wider audience to engage with.
This eventually paid off as, according to Nielsen, Horizon: An American Saga — Part 1 was the most watched movie on streaming during the week of December 30, 2024, to January 5, 2025. On both Max and Netflix, the first chapter of Costner’s new passion project ended up with 753 million minutes viewed during that week.
What’s Next For Horizon: An American Saga
Before the first movie turned out to be a disaster in the box office, leading to Costner losing millions of his own money, Horizon: An American Saga was planned as a four-instalment franchise with two first films being ready for their release within a couple of months of difference.
The first movie’s failure thwarted the initial plans a bit since the second part’s premiere was delayed for an undetermined amount of time. Still, the next instalment might be arriving just in time for potential success if Costner decides to push the movie directly to streaming.
It’s not clear yet if the next chapter will in fact be released on digital platforms or will hit theatres first, but, given Part 1’s situation, the second option remains quite a risky move.