The film Kevin Costner mortgaged his four homes for

Kevin Costner's time at the Cannes Film Festival 2024 was a rollercoaster of emotions, including laughter, tears, and tremendous disappointment. And it all revolves around his most recent directorial project: ‘Horizon - An American Saga’.

On the one hand, the audience gave the actor and director a 7-minute standing ovation that brought tears to his eyes. On the other hand, the reviews of the film, the first of a tetralogy, have been harsher than expected and that hurts... especially when you have mortgaged your four houses to make it!

It was in 1988 that Kevin Costner came up with the original idea for the ‘Horizon’ saga. After 36 years and mortgaging his four houses, he had raised the 100 million dollars required for the first two instalments, 20 million of which he has put up out of his own pocket.

"I don't need four houses. I would like to leave them to my children but they will have to live their own lives," he said at a press conference in Cannes, where the first chapter of the franchise was shown, which will be released in cinemas on 28 June.

From that day, the public will be able to judge the project but, until then, the critics have the word and the critics have been lukewarm towards his project. On Metacritic, it barely reaches 51/100.

Photo: 'Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1' - New Line Cinema

For example, David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter comments that "it plays like a limited series overhauled as a movie, but more like a hasty rough cut than a release ready for any format."

Richard Lawson of Vanity Fair notes that Horizon is "far from stately, or even coherent. A jumble of clichéd plots rendered in washed-out color (and washed-out performances)."

"The films I want to shoot are more complicated than average", the filmmaker said, and he joked: "I have knocked on every boat in Cannes to help me. They say 'Ooh, come have a picture', I say 'No, come get your checkbook out. I want to see. Let's talk money'."

"I believe in the movies, the power of them, the longevity. By putting my own money in it, I will chase this movie with my partners the rest of our lives," Costner told Deadline.

We'll have to see how this first instalment performs at the box office. 'Horizon' opens on June 28 in the U.S. with the second chapter debuting in theaters on Aug. 16.  Perhaps we will see why Kevin Costner mortgaged his four houses.

Kevin Costner is also the star of the saga and plays Hayes... Interestingly, it's the name he gave to his son, who also appears in the film and who accompanied him to Cannes.

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