Kevin Costner has had to weather plenty of ups (Dancing with Wolves) and plenty of downs (Waterworld, though the actor claims it was never a “low point” for him) over the course of his career, and he’s been in a rougher patch ever since he exited Yellowstone and dumped a bunch of money into his Horizon passion project. Amidst this, however, some of his other movies are seeing a resurgence on streaming.
That’s the bad news. The good news is that Let Him Go, a western from 2020 that was written off by the public and only made a little over $10 million dollars at the box office, is now seeing new life on streaming. In fact, it was crushing earlier in April on Netflix, and even made the streamer’s Global Top 10.
Here’s Costner’s simple-yet-honest take on what happened from his Stories:
Sometimes it takes time for people to get it.
Never have truer words been spoken. There are hundreds of examples of movies that flopped that became classics later. There's the famous Fight Club example, of course, in which Brad Pitt and Edward Norton had a cringe-y premiere. Then there are tons of other big movies like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory or Idiocracy.
We actually saw this already once. Horizon was a big flop in movie theaters. It only pulled in a bit over $38 million globally, which is the same amount Costner himself supposedly injected into his sprawling Western projects. He definitely didn’t make his money back, and neither did the studio. Then, a funny thing happened. When the movie went to streaming, Horizon: Chapter One climbed into the Top 10 across all streaming services. People wanted to watch it; they just didn’t make it to the theater to see the movie. This is maybe a shame, because Costner wanted it to be seen in the theater.
Let Him Go actually had solid reviews when it came out, which is a little bit different than what happened with Horizon – though it’s worth pointing out audiences if not the critics are fresh on both movies. The neo-Western thriller was actually filmed in 2019 and became a byproduct of the COVID-19 theatrical mess, in which lots of big movies didn't do so hot and theaters were looking for support. It eventually made its way onto the big screen in November of 2020, but at that time, it was still a struggle to get butts into seats.
Hopefully, years later, the Warner Bros. movie is truly getting its due. Now, maybe it's time to revisit Horizon: Chapter 2.