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Kevin Costner suggests 'Yellowstone' may have borrowed from 'Horizon'—and he's not alone

Kevin Costner discusses his film 'Horizon', his time on 'Yellowstone', and potential similarities between the two projects

Talking to Kevin Costner after the Cannes premiere of 'Horizon: An American Saga', IndieWire’s Anne Thompson asked the filmmaker if he thought he could improve on Taylor Sheridan‘s 'Yellowstone'. Costner had starred as John Dutton for five seasons; he had been unmentioned in the press release for the sixth, which had just begun production at the time. “No, of course not,” he said. However, Costner noted that it could have been the other way around. During the second season of 'Yellowstone' in 2019, he said, Sheridan had been looking for writers. He and Baird had sent him the 'Horizon' script. Thompson noted that both '1883' and 'Horizon' shared a wagon train story.

“So I don’t know if there’s any duplications there,” Costner said. “Whether he borrowed something, only he’d have to admit to.” (Reps for Sheridan had not responded to multiple requests for comment.) Accusations of 'borrowing' were not new to 'Yellowstone'. It had been a popular topic on fan sites, which had called out Sheridan for plotlines that echoed everything from Larry McMurtry’s 'Lonesome Dove' to Janet Dailey’s 'The Calder Saga' and Costner’s own 'Dances With Wolves'. One 'Yellowstone' fan took to X, "Wow Kevin Costner says he wonders if that Taylor Sheridan" borrowed" storyline from his horizon I believe Kevin & lots of ideas can be the same out there but it could explain another reason Kevin left 'Yellowstone'? in reality there only so many stories out there until you repeat them."

Conversely, some critics began comparing 'Horizon' to 'Yellowstone', questioning whether it had taken inspiration from the show. Many reviewers noted that Horizon had a structure that felt more like a TV series than a film. The two productions had also shared a few actors, including Danny Huston. Another possibility: There had been so many Westerns, and most of the stories had taken place in the 50 years between the establishment of the Oregon Trail and the driving of the last spike of the Great Northern Railway. As a genre, it had been the definition of endurance. Those gritty cowboys with their sweeping landscapes and brutal survivalism had been captured, over and over, in fiction, biographies, movies, and TV; if AI had created new formats, it probably would have shown up there, too. 

Westerns had been so ubiquitous that their familiarity had become part of their storytelling. After years of cowboy stories, audiences had shared expectations, making it harder for creators to find fresh storytelling angles. “And then we basically had one year that was completely wiped off the map [and] they didn’t tell anybody,” he had continued, as reported by The Independent.

“Fourteen months later, I could never have that happen to me again. So I kept 'Yellowstone' in the first position, but they had to stick with their contract. And when they were done, then I would do 'Horizon', not vice versa. It’s as simple as that.” Would he have gone back to 'Yellowstone'? “I know they’ll probably do that without me,” he had said. “I’m open to coming back. But I basically have to see what the scripts are about. But now Horizon has my first position.”