“Warner Bros. may have to change its plans for the August sequel to Kevin Costner’s ‘Horizon,’” Showbiz 411 reported Friday. “This weekend, the Civil War adventure made just $11 million in four days of wide release. Critically panned, “Horizon” is a financial disaster for Costner personally and for Warner’s.”

This might be where a gun owner or a Republican might say, “Gee, that’s too bad.” And reflect on why they have no intention of spending hard-earned dollars to reward a celebrity who uses his fame to work against their interests…

Always willing to perform fake cinematic feats of derring-do with guns to thrill audiences into accepting that using them to save the day is good when an “action hero” does it, Costner has proven to be a real-life Fudd extraordinaire, winning the T. Boone Pickens Lifetime Sportsman Award – while calling for “stricter gun laws”:

“I’m a hunter, I hunt but I think there should be gun laws. I think there should be a lot of gun laws. I don’t want to lose my shotgun but there’s a real good reason why I use my shotgun. It came from my grandpa. His cheek was on it. My dad’s cheek was on it and I go out and hunt with my dogs… But, even though with the connection that I have to my gun, can I look at the NRA (National Rifle Association) and say, `I think you’re out of line?’ I can say that.”

He’s out of line with Republicans who don’t want to see the Democrats win the presidency and start enacting collectivist edicts and replacing Supreme Court justices who will undo Bruen and start enabling those “lots of gun laws,” too. Costner’s very public support for Liz Cheney showed his enthusiasm for subverting the agenda that attracted Donald Trump voters.

That turned out to be a flop, too. But at the time, the “star” was defiant.

“Kevin Costner says it’s ‘OK’ if he loses fans over political views,” The Hill reported in 2022. “he ‘didn’t really care how the cookie crumbles’ when he backed Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) earlier this year … as well as former presidential candidate and current Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg in 2020.”

That means “sportsman” Costner supports, among other infringements, registration-enabling “universal background checks,” unconstitutional national licensing, banning semi autos and magazines,  due-process denying “extreme risk protection orders,” suing manufacturers, and more, all couched in propagandist rhetoric as “an action plan to combat the threat of white nationalist terrorism, abetted by weak gun laws and the gun lobby.”

Congratulations, Kevin Costner, the cookie has crumbled. Go ahead and be “OK” with losing the very demographic likely to be interested in an action film combining the Civil War with plenty of historic guns. Enjoy your box office debacle and what that will do to prospects with financial backers. Stupid ought to hurt.

In fairness though, it’s not all on him—he just took a bad situation and made it worse. Movie theater revenues are down and it’s not all due to Covid era closures. More and more Americans are finding out they can do just fine with a big screen TV and have the whole family watch a new release for less than the price of a ticket. Without worrying about having to say something to obnoxious morons who feel entitled to talk, text, bump, and otherwise disrupt…

Gun owners also need not subject themselves to an establishment that imposes “gun-free zone” policies that endanger everyone, and then rewarding not just the theater chain, but a rich collectivist Hollywood establishment that for the overwhelming part hates their values (except when making fistfuls of money off of sensory overload shoot-’em-ups) and abets politicians enacting coercive measures to subvert and destroy them.

They need us. We don’t need them. Not that Costner’s example will register with privileged useful idiots who will once more make unfulfilled promises to leave the country if Donald Trump wins…

About David Codrea:

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.