Kevin Costner claims Horizon: An American Saga was more difficult than Dances with Wolves to make

This week, Kevin Costner shared the first trailer for his next directorial effort, a massive film that will explore how the American Old West was won and then lost. Known as Horizon: An American Saga, this series of films is slated to be split into four chapters, with the first two chapters coming as soon as this June and August.

Talking about this new theatrical undertaking, Costner spoke with Variety to discuss which film was a bigger challenge to make, Horizon or his Oscar-winning directorial debut Dances with Wolves.

"This is by far the biggest struggle. I'm shocked at what we were able to get. I shot 'Dances' for 106 days, I shot the movie you're just seeing right now in 52. ... I did learn a lot and I was able to use every trick in the book to try to bring this movie to ground and to bring it to an audience. And there's four of them!"

Horizon is part-funded by Costner as he couldn't find a production company to fully support the project. Despite this, he went ahead with the movie series all the same, describing himself as "a little bit of a hard-head". In terms of the theme for Horizon, and how it seems to be taking a more artsy and cinematic approach to the western genre, instead of typical gunslinging action, Costner spoke about just this:

"We have a lot of Westerns that aren't good, because they get too simplified. Westerns are, in fact, complicated, because this isn't Disneyland. These were real lives. People just making their way. Women just trying to keep their families clean, fed, and basically worked to death. Women's lives were short; all they did was have to work. I'm drawn to that. I mean, I'm always gonna get to my gunfight, but I'm drawn to the little things of what people had to endure."

Horizon: An American Saga's Chapter 1 lands on June 28 and its Chapter 2 arrives on August 16. Catch the trailer below.