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Kevin Costner Jokes about Blocking Cannes Yachts to Finance ‘Horizon’ Films

US director Kevin Costner attends the press conference for "Horizon: An American Saga" during the 77th annual Cannes Film Festival, in Cannes, France, 20 May 2024. (Getty Images)
US director Kevin Costner attends the press conference for "Horizon: An American Saga" during the 77th annual Cannes Film Festival, in Cannes, France, 20 May 2024. (Getty Images)
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Kevin Costner Jokes about Blocking Cannes Yachts to Finance ‘Horizon’ Films

US director Kevin Costner attends the press conference for "Horizon: An American Saga" during the 77th annual Cannes Film Festival, in Cannes, France, 20 May 2024. (Getty Images)
US director Kevin Costner attends the press conference for "Horizon: An American Saga" during the 77th annual Cannes Film Festival, in Cannes, France, 20 May 2024. (Getty Images)

Kevin Costner joked at the Cannes Film Festival on Monday that he was ready to blockade rich people on their yachts unless they gave him money to finance his planned four-part Western series "Horizon: An American Saga."

The Hollywood star has already taken out a mortgage on 10 acres of his waterfront property in California to help fund the film project, which tells of the challenges faced by settlers expanding the American West in the late 1800s. Now, he needs more financial backing for the project.

"If we all went out together into this harbor and we stood in front of one boat. And didn't let those rich people off, and we can tell them, 'Look, you can dress up, you can walk on the red carpet,' you know..." Costner told a packed news conference.

"I have knocked on every boat in Cannes to help me. They say 'Ooh, come have a picture', I say 'No, come get your chequebook out. I want to see. Let's talk money," he added.

The first two parts are complete, with the 181-minute initial chapter premiering out of competition at the festival on Sunday. It will be released in North America and select European locations on June 28, followed by part two on Aug. 16.

Filming on the third chapter began before Costner set out for Cannes.

"This has been so hard. And it's not over yet," he told Reuters in an interview at the festival.

MIXED REVIEWS

Costner will star in, direct, produce and co-write the film series, which covers a 15-year period before and after the 1861-1865 Civil War when white settlers expanded westward in the United States, taking land from American Indians.

Costner's previous credits in Westerns include his Oscar-winning "Dances With Wolves" in 1990 and more recently as the star of the successful five-season TV series "Yellowstone."

"I can't fill every box every time I try to make a movie, but I'm absolutely conscious of what's at stake, and trying to represent people," Costner said at the news conference.

"Horizon," with Sienna Miller, Jena Malone, Abbey Lee and Dale Dickey among the cast, is also heavily oriented towards women, added Costner.

Reviews trended towards the negative, with Britain's The Guardian newspaper calling it "a big vain slog up familiar old west alleys," while another British newspaper, The Telegraph, said it would please those who pine for old-fashioned Westerns.

"Costner may have just invented granddad cinema," read The Telegraph headline.

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Raspy-voiced Hit Machine Rod Stewart Turns 80

Singer Rod Stewart, with his distinctive spiky blond hair and raspy voice, dominated pop charts during the 1970s and 1980s. Kirsty Wigglesworth / POOL/AFP/File
Singer Rod Stewart, with his distinctive spiky blond hair and raspy voice, dominated pop charts during the 1970s and 1980s. Kirsty Wigglesworth / POOL/AFP/File
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Raspy-voiced Hit Machine Rod Stewart Turns 80

Singer Rod Stewart, with his distinctive spiky blond hair and raspy voice, dominated pop charts during the 1970s and 1980s. Kirsty Wigglesworth / POOL/AFP/File
Singer Rod Stewart, with his distinctive spiky blond hair and raspy voice, dominated pop charts during the 1970s and 1980s. Kirsty Wigglesworth / POOL/AFP/File

Singer Rod Stewart, who helped British rock conquer the world with a string of megahits, turns 80 on Friday -- with no plans to slow down.
Stewart, with his distinctive spiky blond hair and raspy voice, dominated pop charts during the 1970s and 1980s with hits like "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?" and "Young Turks", notching up more than 250 million record sales worldwide.
He also made headlines for a prolific love life that included relationships with a string of models and actresses including Britt Ekland.
Despite his landmark birthday, Stewart says he has no plans to retire.
"I love what I do, and I do what I love. I'm fit, have a full head of hair and can run 100 meters (330 feet) in 18 seconds at the jolly old age of 79," he wrote last year.
The star will play the legends slot at the famed Glastonbury music festival this summer.
Although his forthcoming European and North American tour dates will be his last large-scale project, he has said he plans to concentrate on more intimate venues in the future.
He will headline a new residency in Las Vegas from March to June.
A tour is also slated for 2026 for Swing Fever, the album he released last year with pianist and ex-Squeeze band member Jools Holland.
As he has approached his ninth decade, Stewart has also made headlines for quirkier reasons such as his passion for model railways and his battle with potholes that have prevented him from driving his Ferrari near his home in eastern England.
The singer, who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 2016, has been married three times and has fathered eight children. His third wife is model and television personality Penny Lancaster.
From London to global star
Stewart's story began in north London on 10 January 1945, when Roderick Stewart was born into a middle-class family.
After a "fantastically happy childhood", he developed a love of music when his father bought him a guitar in 1959, and he formed a skiffle band with school friends a year later.
He joined the band Dimensions in 1963 as a harmonica player, exploring his love of folk, blues and soul music while learning from other artists such as Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger in London's blossoming rhythm and blues scene.
Stewart's career took off in 1967 when he joined the renowned guitarist Jeff Beck's eponymous new band, which also included future Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood, allowing him to develop his raw and soulful vocal style and stagecraft while exposing him to a US audience.
He and Wood took up the offer to join mod pioneers Small Faces following the departure of their singer Steve Marriott in 1969 -- the band soon changing its name to The Faces -- shortly before Stewart released his debut solo album.
It was his 1971 third solo release, "Every Picture Tells a Story", that confirmed him as one of the world's most successful artists, reaching number one in Britain, Australia and the United States, where it went platinum.
The album helped define Stewart's rock/folk sound, featuring heartfelt lyrics and heavy use of unusual instruments such as the mandolin, particularly prominent on the album's standout hit "Maggie May".
"I just love stories with a beginning, middle and end," he once said.
'I had the last laugh'
Focusing on his solo career after 1975, Stewart's "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?" released in 1978 was not to everyone's taste.
"Once the most compassionate presence in music, he has become a bilious self-parody -– and sells more records than ever," Rolling Stone magazine said in 1980.
Never one to be cowed by the critics, Stewart defended this phase, telling an interviewer that audiences "absolutely love it, so I had the last laugh".
Richard Houghton, author of the book "Tell Everyone -- A People's History of the Faces" said that Stewart had "possibly the most distinctive voice in rock music".
The singer had successfully combined writing classic songs of his own such as "Maggie May" or "You Wear It Well" with taking other people's songs -- from Bob Dylan to Tom Waits -- and making them his own .
More recently, there had been four albums of the "classic songs of the 1930s from his Great American Songbook catalogue".
Houghton said audiences could expect to see plenty more of Stewart.
"He's like any entertainer. He loves the spotlight. He's not going to sit at home watching the television when somewhere around the world there's a crowd wanting to hear him sing 'Mandolin Wind' or 'First Cut Is The Deepest' one more time.
"Rod will keep singing until the day he drops," he added.