Kevin Costner’s New Western Franchise Needs To Continue Yellowstone’s Most Impressive Feat
Kevin Costner's upcoming Western franchise Horizon has the opportunity to adapt the biggest accomplishment of Yellowstone for the silver screen.
- Kevin Costner’s Horizon has the potential to continue the success of Yellowstone by bringing the Western genre to the big screen, but it will face challenges in reviving the genre in a traditional format.
- Yellowstone‘s popularity and subsequent spin-offs indicate a true revival of the Western genre in television, with its reliance on horses, guns, and explosions captivating audiences.
- Horizon can ride on the coattails of Yellowstone‘s built-in audience, but it will need to reinvent the traditional Western format to appeal to modern viewers and revitalize the genre on the silver screen.
Kevin Costner’s upcoming Western movie franchise, titled Horizon, has the opportunity to take the success of Yellowstone from the small screen to the silver screen – but it will face an uphill battle. Costner himself was at the center of Yellowstone‘s takeover of modern television, which was so significant that it spawned an entire universe of spin-offs and sequels. A far cry from the typical TV drama, Yellowstone found success leaning into the hard-nosed world of Western ranching, with satisfying outcomes based in violence and vengeance.
Yellowstone‘s reliance on horses, fists, guns, and explosions makes for riveting television, and a massive part of its success is based in its Western genre roots. The show’s ascension acted as the catalyst for a true revival of the Western genre, which had been struggling since the early 1990s. Some one-off movies found mainstream success over the years, but Yellowstone‘s viewing numbers – along with those of its subsequent prequels, 1883 and 1923 – indicate there is a legitimate revival of the Western genre within the television space.
Kevin Costner’s Horizon Can Continue Yellowstone’s Western Genre Revival
Horizon now has the opportunity to help revive Westerns on the big screen just like Yellowstone has done for TV. There have been some sparks in the Western genre over the last few years, but major box office successes have been few and far between. One of the more notable Westerns in recent memory is actually the Netflix film The Harder They Fall starring Jonathan Majors and Idris Elba. One-offs in any genre do not constitute a revival, however, and The Harder They Fall brought an all-star cast and highly stylized spin to the traditional Western genre.
Kevin Costner’s Horizon will have plenty of advantages when it is finally released, the most significant being its ability to ride the coattails of Yellowstone. Costner’s highly publicized exit from Yellowstone has been mostly blamed on his desire to work on Horizon, so the project has a built-in audience already aware of it and waiting to see it. If Costner can bring some of the most successful elements of Yellowstone to the big screen with Horizon – interesting characters, tight writing, and explosive Western action – he could revitalize the Western genre for the modern audience.
How Yellowstone Made The Western Genre Mainstream Again
Viewers love Yellowstone for many of the same reasons they love any good modern drama–entertaining plots, characters they care about, and dramatic relationships and conflicts. What separates Yellowstone
The West has always represented something new and better throughout American history, and Yellowstone tapped into that notion. In the modern world of screens, concrete, and cars, the allure of the wild West is rising again. One could argue that American TV and cinema was “due” for a Western revival, and Yellowstone perfectly packaged the best elements of the genre in a smart modern drama with impeccable timing.
Horizon Faces A Tougher Challenge Than Yellowstone Ever Did
