The Venice Film Festival got underway last week, and reactions to some of the highly-anticipated world premieres are starting to arrive.

One of the last films to screen at the festival (out of competition) is Kevin Costner’s HORIZON: AN AMERICAN SAGA - CHAPTER 2, which was originally scheduled to arrive in US theaters on August 16th, 2024, but was delayed after the first chapter’s disappointing box-office performance.

Horizon: An American Saga chronicles the birth, death and rebirth of a river settlement in nineteenth century New Mexico Territory. Through the entwined and often clashing perspectives of settlers and soldiers, rail magnates and cattle traders, Indigenous Americans and Chinese migrant workers, the film tells a unique, unflinching, ground-level story of a young nation’s struggles, its promise, and its foundational sins.

Costner’s Director’s Statement for Venice: Horizon: An American Saga is a story that I started developing the idea for in 1988, and began pursuing its production in 2003, after I filmed Open Range. In the two decades since, John Baird and I grew Horizon into a four-film saga. At the heart of the saga is the story of the great migration across America. The struggles, determination and perseverance of those first settlers into that promise of hope and the opportunity for a new future.

Here are the first reactions out of Venice, along with some video of Costner at the film’s press conference: