Oscars 2025: Can Kevin Costner Save Hollywood?

I was both dreading and anticipating this day. I have been excited that Kevin Costner’s western saga Horizon Part One would play at Cannes but dreading the reviews, tweets, and “hot takes.” Most of the people who go to Cannes vary in age and experience. Some are there for the CINEMA. Others are there to hunt for Oscar contenders (like I used to), while others are just working there as press.

The kinds of people who review movies out of Cannes, in my opinion, are good for some things (like a Yorgos Lanthimos movie) and not so good for other things, like, say, Top Gun Maverick or Horizon.

The problem with every Oscar season is the flattening and limiting of the consensus. Film Twitter has just made that much, much worse. To assess the Oscar race now is to often push against the tide of groupthink. No easy task.

Some films played at Cannes that will be ushered through the season, hitting Telluride and the fest circuit and, eventually, finding their place at awards shows. Last year, both Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest came out of Cannes, having split the top prize there. The third was Pot au Feu/The Taste of Things, which was unfairly shut out of the race by angry activists who were mad about Anatomy of the Fall not being “chosen” by France. Such a silly game that was.

Several titles are buzzing about now that will take the Palme and other awards. No doubt, a few might find their way onto the Best Picture lineup. That is both good news if they’re good movies, and bad news if the American film industry isn’t hitting the high water mark.  The Oscars are pivoting toward a more global audience, where the box office is strongest. That just makes me sad. I don’t want to see the American film industry flatline. I am hoping Costner can kneel in front of the code blue almost-dead body, pound its heart back to life and breathe some hot fresh oxygen into its lungs.

I won’t be ruminating too much on the reviews that come out of Cannes because, frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn. I will be waiting, instead, to see what audiences think and whether this movie can do what almost no movie has done this year (so far) bring them out in droves. But there are some tweets worth noting:

Kevin Costner gets teary-eyed during the standing ovation for his film “Horizon: An American Saga” at Cannes. pic.twitter.com/ddOxeGUprm

— Variety (@Variety) May 19, 2024

There are many theories offered up as to why box office is still dead that range from COVID keeping people home to streaming to a lack of strong marketing. Maybe so. We do know that movies have brought out audiences when they become events that everyone must participate in. I’m hoping that will be Horizon. Hoping.

Horizon appears to do what Hollywood films used to – tell a universal story where everyone can sit down under one roof, elbow to elbow, and have an experience at the movies. I hope that it makes a hideous, obscene amount of money. I hope that it is the new standard for Hollywood – to make movies that big, in two parts in one Summer. I mean, come on. That’s insane and amazing.

From what I can tell, Horizon tells what happened. It isn’t a “white people bad” scold. Our history is our history, the good, the bad and the ugly.