The movie Kevin Costner will always regret: “It’s too bad it went the way it went”
Having flown too close to the sun when his career was at its apex and then done the exact same thing when he finally picked up the broken pieces, Kevin Costner doesn’t come across as somebody who holds too many regrets from a career that sent him to the top of Hollywood before bringing him crashing back down.
One of the industry’s biggest draws from the late 1980s through to the mid-1990s, Costner had everything an actor could want: two Academy Award wins to his name, a track record of critical and box office success, and the ability to pick and choose the roles he wanted to play due to the sheer volume of high-profile scripts being sent to his door.
However, all of that goodwill evaporated instantly when The Postman was declared dead on arrival after Costner discovered that perhaps investing his own money into a film he also produced and starred in was only going to work once, as it did on Dances with Wolves. Undeterred, though, his ambitious plans for the four-part epic Horizon remain completely in limbo, and he sacrificed his high-paying Yellowstone gig to even try and make it happen.
Clearly, the actor and filmmaker has no issues betting on himself, even when his track record is far from sparkling. Even then, The Postman wasn’t the first time he was confident enough to run headlong into potential disaster, and as has been the case every time since, Costner didn’t end up on the winning side.
Twin films are a regular phenomenon in Tinseltown, with the western genre throwing up a pair of heated rivals when Lawrence Kasdan’s Wyatt Earp – in which Costner played the title role and produced – went head to head with Kevin Jarre – and ultimately George P Costmatos‘ – Tombstone, which had Kurt Russell playing the same character, who was also the lead.
Both pictures were shot in 1993, but even though Costner’s film finished principal photography shortly after Tombstone, it wasn’t released until almost six months later. Having already been treated to an Earp-centric western boasting an accomplished roster of recognisable faces and esteemed character actors, audiences weren’t quite as receptive to Wyatt Earp as they were to its spiritual predecessor.
Costner’s flick cost more than twice as much to make as Tombstone and earned less money in ticket sales, so there are no prizes for guessing who won the war. Reflecting on his career in conversation with GQ, the Oscar winner admitted that as proud as he remains of the film, the race to reach the screen first was a decision that didn’t work out in his best interests.
“I love Wyatt, or I just love that movie,” he said. “We got into a level of competition with Tombstone. A good friend said, ‘Look, we can postpone this movie. We don’t want to compete’. I said, ‘Look, I’m sure this writer, director wants to make this movie, let them’. And then this kind of space race started. And I always regretted that there was this kind of weird competition, and it was a fun movie, Tombstone, but it’s too bad the way it went.”
Costner had the chance to stop Tombstone in its tracks, only to inadvertently shoot himself in the foot when he didn’t bother, and his Wyatt Earp epic arrived half a year later to fall well short of its rival on every front.
