The Most Epic Western of the Year Could Be the Nail in the Coffin for a Century-Old Genre

Is the big-budget Western officially dead?

The question has haunted Hollywood just about every decade since the once-ubiquitous genre dried up more than 50 years ago. But it might finally have a definitive and dour answer thanks to Kevin Costner’s and Netflix’s Godless) where its longer narratives feel like a more natural fit.

“There is a long tradition of folks consuming Western stories in the home, and I think that points to the vibrancy of the genre,” Nelson says.

As much as Costner would like Horizon to perform in major cities and attract Marvel-raised crowds, the movie is only surviving in the margins. In a recent Deadline breakdown, the movie’s best performing locations were all non-traditional markets — small towns in Utah, Texas, Arizona, and Oklahoma — made up of older audiences. More than 60% of ticket buyers were over age 45, and 47% were over 55, according to PostTrak exit surveys.

“The Western has kind of receded back to where it was before the ascendancy of the A-picture in the late 1930s,” Nelson says, “where only particularly rural demographics tended to like Westerns.”

At a time when attracting theatrical audiences is as tough as it’s ever been, Horizon doesn’t even hold the distinction of playing in premium format theaters (such as IMAX) that could have been a bigger incentive to draw audiences out of the house. In other words, simply plopping a big Western in theaters no longer works, and it hasn’t for a while now.

“It’s not enough people for studios or networks to want to roll the dice on a large-scale Western series” Loria says.

But then again, as Loria readily admits, this isn’t the first time Hollywood has tried to write off its oldest and most reliable genre. And it probably won’t be the last.

“The Western has died a million deaths in this industry.”

Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 is in theaters now.