Kevin Costner’s least favourite thing about filmmaking: “I don’t really give a shit”
Kevin Costner is a massive, world-renowned movie star with decades of hits on his resume, but he still feels like he is at odds with mainstream entertainment culture.
Although there was a period in the late 1980s and ‘90s when Costner was perhaps the single most famous movie star on the planet, the Academy Award winner was somehow able to launch a second wave of his career in the 21st century. After winning back critics with his brilliant performances in the miniseries Hatfields & McCoys, Costner was instrumental within one of the most ambitious television projects of recent years when he led the cast of Taylor Sheridan’s neo-western Yellowstone.
Both stages of Costner’s career were ultimately undone by his ego; the actor’s desire for creative control and insistence that his instincts are correct derailed many projects. In the ‘90s, Costner took immense creative control over films like Wyatt Earp and Waterworld, each of which bombed, putting his star power into question. At the height of his success with Yellowstone, Costner decided to abandon his audience to make his multi-part western epic Horizon: An American Saga, which he had completely self-financed.
Critics haven’t always been on Costner’s side, but he claimed that he wasn’t dismayed by what audiences thought that he could do better.
“I don’t mind Hollywood, after all, I don’t make movies that are like avant guard or not understandable,” Costner said. “I just like to make a mainstream movie with all the edges that existed in the writing and I don’t like to see it flattened out in order to cater to audiences.”
While it’s easy to call out some of Costner’s recent failures, his history of successes speak for themselves; in addition to revolutionizing the sports movie genre with Bull Durham and Field of Dreams, Costner also redefined one of the most iconic fictional heroes of all-time with Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. It’s perhaps a little easier to understand why he’s bristled at any backlash by those who aren’t in the industry.
“I don’t really give a shit what people think about my movie after watching it and giving it a test score, but I really care about what you think about it when you see it in its purity, because I don’t’ feel like I’m going to lose you,” Costner said. “I don’t feel like my movies are going to be for everyone because they’re not, because sometimes they’re more adult and that eliminates kids.”
It’s become clear that Costner sees creative authority as being the most important aspect of storytelling, and that his departure from Yellowstone may be the result of clashes with Sheridan over direction for his character. With Horizon: An American Saga, Costner’s only limitation is the film’s financial performance; the first chapter of his ambitious project was a box office failure that led Warner Bros to remove the second instalment from its release schedule altogether.
Not only is the likelihood of Costner completing the planned third and fourth instalments in Horizon: An American Saga looking bleak, but it’s unclear if the completed second instalment will ever actually be released due to a series of lawsuits. Costner hasn’t always earned the reputation of being easy to work with, but it would be untruthful to claim that he hasn’t shown passion and complete conviction in what he puts his name on.
