How Kevin Costner Really Feels About the Change in Plans for Horizon: Chapter 2

This isn't Kevin Costner's first rodeo.

Before Field of Dreams came out in 1989, a Vanity Fair profile of the film's star predicted it would "probably disappear quickly" because it was "curiously literary and undramatic."

You can try telling that to the millions of people who've since made pilgrimages to the Dyersville, Iowa, cornfield where Ray Kinsella was advised that "if you build it, he will come," but they might think you're talking crazy.

"It was so dismissive, that Field of Dreams would fade immediately," Costner told E! News in an exclusive interview. "And we're still doing celebrations of it. Men and women, sons and daughters, it's stood the time of decades, now generations—and that's how I try to make movies. That's what I see for Horizon."

Costner's known for taking big swings, some of which ended up out of the park (his three-hour-long directorial debut Dances With Wolves winning seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Director), while some were line drives straight into the glove. 

And his long-gestating Horizon: An American Saga—Costner's planned four-part story of Civil War-era westward migration that he left Yellowstone to finally start making—took its share of skeptical industry lumps long before Chapter 1 hit theaters in June.

Much to the actor's... lack of surprise.

"I've faced life with people being dismissive of me," Costner said. "But they can't be dismissive of Horizon, because now it's out of their hands. And they might point to the finish line—well, this is what it did at the box office—but I know that this movie is going to play for the next 50 years."

Because not unlike with Field of Dreams, "There's a moment in time where you want [your children] to see this movie," he said. "To understand that this is what their [ancestors] went through. It's not just a western, it's a history of migration and what they had to do to survive. And I'm really proud of it."

Subsequently, the 69-year-old remains undeterred by the decision to take Horizon: An American Saga—Chapter 2 off the summer release schedule instead of putting it in theaters Aug. 16, just seven weeks after the first film opened.

In a July 10 statement explaining the move, New Line Cinema and Costner's Territory Pictures said they switched course to "give audiences a greater opportunity to discover the first installment." (The movie did shoot to No. 1 on VOD charts once it was available.)

But the horizon also tends to look brighter once the Venice Film Festival opts to host your movie's world premiere instead.

"That was a nice development over there," Costner said of the news that the first two films will screen together on Sept. 7, Chapter 1 in the morning, followed by the debut of Chapter 2 that night. "They understand that it's a saga."

In fact, showing Chapter 2 in Italy was originally the dream.

"That part is exactly how I imagined it," he acknowledged. "I didn't ever imagine [the releases] six weeks apart, it was always four months, or six months. But the studio saw an opportunity, they thought it could be something."

He added, laughing, "I don't feel that anymore."

But he had envisioned a Venice premiere and, Costner noted, "they won't show a movie if it's already been played. So, one thing happens—and the next, I get this other thing to happen."

And when he believes an idea can be something, he doesn't mess around. (He ultimately put $38 million—"That's the real number," he previously told GQ—of his own money into getting Chapter 1 made.)

"I don't really fall out of love with something I feel strongly about," Costner explained. "Until somebody convinces me otherwise it needs to go in another direction, that doesn’t happen."

He conceded that, here and there, he's "been able to be talked off of my position before." But in this case, he added, "I feel like my job is to bring something original to people. And it's really hard to make a good western." 

While he's parental-level proud of all the performances he got out of the saga's sizable ensemble—and not least because he directed his now-15-year-old son Hayes Costner in a small but emotionally pivotal role—Costner singled out how Sienna Miller, Jena Malone and Abbey Lee "jumped off the screen" in Chapter 1.

And, he promised, "they do even more so in the second one. They're really alive, now that you know them."

It was also imperative to Costner to give an honest depiction of western expansionism. "These towns that exist, whether they're St. Louis, Tucson, Phoenix," he said, "there was a moment in time when a single stake went in the ground. And that ground belonged to an indigenous population that didn't want them."

And when naysayers told him to wake up and smell the coffee—that a western, or any ambitious original story meant for a big screen, just wouldn't play in the streaming age—he paid them no mind.

He also woke up and literally started smelling coffee. The actor tasted numerous brews en route to releasing the Horizon Blend by Kevin Costner, his partnership with Green Mountain Coffee Roasters helping to fuel his epic Chapter 1 press tour.

It's "important to me to have a level of authenticity with anything I do," Costner said, a cup of coffee in hand during his Zoom with E! from his Santa Barbara home. His thinking was, "'Look, why can't we do something like this? I do this every day.'"

He also appreciated that Green Mountain really collaborated on getting the finished product just right for his namesake dark roast blend. But, he quipped, "I'm also the kind of guy who throws junk in it, too, chocolate and things like that," hence his Mountainside Mocha Latte also being a favorite.

Meanwhile, if his schedule leading up to the premiere of Chapter 1 was any indication, Costner's going to be needing some caffeine for the build-up to Chapter 2.

He wasn't sure yet if Venice would end up being a big family affair like Cannes, where his daughters Annie, 40, Lily, 38, Grace, 14, and sons Cayden, 17, and Hayes joined him for the premiere of Chapter 1 (and its seven-minute standing ovation).

Cayden's "been making noises about coming," Costner shared, but the teen will have to make "a convincing case" if he wants to miss four days of school.

Of course, the father of seven was admittedly tempted to just say yes, noting with a conspiratorial smile that school wouldn't have been a big priority for him back in the day. But in any case, Costner said, "I love having him with me."

Then, once Chapter 2 is in the audience's hands, the process starts all over again.

"Sometimes morning coffee gets me going in the right place. Sometimes, no matter how good the coffee is, the problems are still there when I'm done," Costner said of the challenges he inevitably comes across making any movie. "But there are moments that it becomes incredibly satisfying."

He explained, "When I think of something new, under pressure, that no one had thought of, or finally solved [a problem where] no one knew where we were going to go. That's the moment I have the most satisfaction. I earned my dough today."

Better brew another cup, because he's coming back for more tomorrow.