Kevin Costner vows to continue Horizon film series

Kevin Costner will press on with making his Horizon film series despite the second instalment receiving a critical panning.

The 69-year-old acting legend invested tens of millions of dollars of his own money to create the western epic film series - with the first chapter being released in June this year.

While the first film received a nine-minute standing ovation when it premiered at Cannes earlier this year, it went on to receive terrible reviews and it bombed at the box office.

Kevin attended the Venice Film Festival last week to premiere the second film in his planned four-part series - which has already received negative reviews from critics.

But Costner vowed to press on with the next segment, telling Variety, "I have to hurry and not let the rock fall back downhill."

Discussing the troubled project further, he said, "I've gotta go put my hands on it again and start to push it up. It's a rope that I cannot let go of. I don't know how I'm gonna make 3 right now, but I'm gonna make it."

Discussing the difficult release of the first film, which has stalled a cinematic release for the second, the Field Of Dreams star added, "I think it probably was a reaction to the release of 1 - it didn't have overwhelming success. That was a studio decision to release it six weeks later, and it became a studio situation to not (release it that quickly).

"I've had a lot of movies that way that have stood the test of time. For me, it fell back into my plan, which was: I always wanted to come out with the movies about five, six months apart, and that was gonna allow me to come to Venice."

The third film in the series is currently filming and is expected to conclude before the end of the year - while Costner added that the fourth and final script has been completed.