Kevin Costner frets about financing Horizon: An American Saga

Kevin Costner premiered his film Horizon: An American Saga at the Cannes Film Festival on Sunday night (May 19), aiming to make it into a four-part series even though he’s not sure how he’ll finance it.

The actor took out a mortgage on 10 acres of his waterfront property in California to help fund the project, which tells of the challenges faced by settlers expanding the American West in the late 1800s. But the financing still may not be enough.

“This has been so hard. And it’s not over yet,” said Costner, who started filming on the third chapter before heading to Cannes. “I have to find the money,” he told Reuters in an interview at the festival.

The actor even likens himself to the characters his film portrays.

“I’m just like the people going West,” Costner said. “I have to figure this out because there’s no one really going to help me,” he said about the challenges of making the series.

He stars in, directed, produced and co-wrote the first film, which covers a 15-year period before and after the 1861-1865 Civil War when white settlers expanded westward in the United States, taking land from American Indians.

Costner’s previous credits in Westerns include his Oscar-winning Dances With Wolves in 1990 and more recently as the star of the successful five-season TV series Yellowstone.

The 181-minute first part of Horizon: An American Saga, premiering out of competition at Cannes, will be released in North America, the UK, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands on June 28, followed by part two on Aug 16.