Summary
One of the biggest dangling threads left at the end ofHorizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1was the nature of the eponymous town of Horizon, and where the flyers directing people there originally came from.The star-studded cast ofHorizonis spread over the entirety of the Old West duringChapter 1, but their paths are all seemingly converging on a booming town far out west known as Horizon. Several of the characters, including Kevin Costner’s Hayes Ellison, have been shown reading a flyer pointing people in that direction.
No character in anyHorizon’s various storylinesis aware of where the flyers came from, but what it promises is available is enough to encourage anyone looking to make a new life far from the cities of the East. The flyer boasts that “The Best Thing In The West Is The Town Of Horizon”, and makes claims that it has the “best grazing land in the world” in addition to “pure and abundant water”, “temperate climate”, and “excellent health.” On the grueling journey west that eachHorizoncharacter is making, the flyers offer a life worth struggling towards.
Giovanni Ribisi’s Pickering Creates The Flyers For Horizon
Pickering isn’t revealed until the very end of the movie
One of the bigger names listed in the cast ofHorizon: An American Sagais Giovanni Ribisi, yet the first three hours of the saga passed without his appearance.His character finally appears at the end of the movie, during a montage that teases scenes from the already-producedHorizon: An American Saga - Chapter 2, which was supposed to releaseon August 16th, 2024, just a few weeks after the first chapter debuted. The montage was meant as a tease of what’s to come to stoke interest, not unlike how TV shows will feature a few moments from the next episode.
After its theatrical release date was delayed indefinitely,Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 2will make its debut at the Venice Film Festival in 2024.
Ribisi’s character Pickering appears in a brief scene that plays out in between shots from other continuing storylines, and includes him looking out the window of a printing press located in a city. Behind him, a team of men is printing the flyers en masse, and one seeks Pickering’s approval on it before continuing on. That is the only introduction that Ribisi’s Pickering is given, although it’s known that he is a land entrepreneur andlikely the man who owns the land that Horizon is supposedly located on.
Why Pickering Is Printing The Horizon Flyers In Chapter 1
The land entrepreneur is hoping to draw more settlers to the land he owns
Pickering’s motivations are hard to accurately pin down based on the extremely brief scene he appears in at the end ofHorizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1, but Kevin Costner himself has provided a bit more insight into why he is printing the flyers. In an interview withCollider, Costner noted that Ribisi’s Pickering will be a major player in the later chapters.
He’s gonna dominate [movies] three and four and is a fabulous character in American cinema. When you see him come on, he’s not sinister, he’s a salesman.
Given that Pickering appears in a city (that is theoretically much farther east) and appears to be wealthy, it’s easy to draw some conclusions about his character.He is a land entrepreneur who is selling people the dream of the American West, with promises of prosperity and good living. In reality, the journey required to get there and then the life that can be found there are both dangerous and difficult. Settlers died in huge numbers on the journey west, via disease, attacks from Indigenous tribes, deadly wildlife and sometimes simple dehydration and starvation.
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He may not be as intentionally villainous as the classic robber barons of John Wayne westerns, butas a salesman with little regard for those he deceives, Pickering isn’t much better. It will be interesting to see how Pickering gets folded into the narrative more in the later chapters, if they ever get made.Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1is now streaming on Max, and it will need to find a much larger audience than it did in theaters if the final two chapters of Costner’s western epic are to be completed.
Source:Collider
Horizon: An American Saga
“Horizon: An American Saga” is a series of epic Western films directed, produced, and co-written by Kevin Costner. The saga spans pre- and post-Civil War America, detailing the exploration and settlement of the American West over 15 years, and follows multiple storylines of fictional characters as they navigate the challenges and opportunities of this tumultuous period.
