By Jake Coyle, Film Writer
NEW YORK (AP) --The August theatrical release for the second chapter of Kevin Costner's ambitious Western epic "Horizon: An American Saga" has been canceled after the first film fizzled in theaters.
New Line Cinema announced Wednesday that "Horizon: Chapter 2" will not hit theaters on Aug. 16 as scheduled. The studio had planned an unusually fast back-to-back release for the two "Horizon" films. But after the first chapter collected a modest $23 million in its first two weeks in theaters, the distributor pivoted.
"Territory Pictures and New Line Cinema have decided not to release 'Horizon: Chapter 2' on August 16 in order to give audiences a greater opportunity to discover the first installment of 'Horizon' over the coming weeks," a spokesperson for New Line said in a statement.
For now, the release of "Chapter 2" will be marked TBD on the theatrical calendar. The first "Horizon," which opened in theaters on June 28, will land on premium on-demand July 16. No streaming date on Max has yet been announced. The Hollywood Reporter first reported the shift in plans.
The move is a humbling acknowledgement that Costner's big theatrical gamble for his decadeslong passion project has failed to catch on with audiences. The first chapter of "Horizon," which debuted in May at the Cannes Film Festival, cost some $100 million to make, making its path to profitability extremely challenging if not impossible. Costner put some of his own money into it, and has already begun shooting a third installment of what he envisions will ultimately be four movies.
When asked in May about the movies hitting theaters in quick succession, Costner said, "The studio wanted to try that. I knew this was going to come out fairly quickly, like every four or five months. That may have been easier. But this is something they feel like people can remember the first one and it can tie into the second one."
Costner, who directed, co-wrote and co-stars in the films, had been trying to make "Horizon" for more than 30 years. While releasing the film, Costner confirmed his exit from the hit series "Yellowstone." The ultimate destination of "Horizon," he acknowledged, was always going to be on TV.
"They're going to break this up into a hundred pieces, you know what I mean?" said Costner. "After four of these, they're going to have 13, 14 hours of film and they're going to turn into 25 hours of TV, and they're going to do whatever they're going to do. That's just the way we live in our life but they'll also exist in this form. And that was important for me, to make sure that happened. And I was the one who paid for it."
Google Opens Its Defense In Antitrust Case Alleging Monopoly Over Online Ad Technology
Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.
"The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years," said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company's first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.
The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.
Google counters that the government's case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads — essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google's lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.
Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.
Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.
The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent... Read More