The first installment of the four-part Western will hit theaters this summer.
Two decades after his last directorial effort, Kevin Costner has a new film on the horizon — and he’s bringing his son with him.
The first trailer for Horizon: An American Saga debuted Monday, and footage from the forthcoming Western epic offers glimpses of the Dances With Wolves director’s son Hayes Costner, 15, making his screen acting debut.
In the trailer, Hayes’ character defies the wishes of his mother (Sienna Miller) as their home is under attack. After his mother urges him to join her in the basement to hide from the invaders, the young man says, “It’s all right. I’m gonna be with dad,” shutting the cellar door as a fire blazes behind him.
The elder Costner, 69, clarified that he and his son play the same lead character in the film. “Hayes plays the namesake character that I actually play in the movie. He’s 13 years old and the screenplay’s been around longer than that,” the actor and filmmaker told PEOPLE. He also joked that he cast his son in order to spend some quality time with him. “I kind of did it on purpose, so he could be hanging out with me,” he said. “I’m like any other parent, I’m trying to figure out, like, ‘This is really neat. You should come be with me.'”
Other actors who appear in the trailer include Luke Wilson, Danny Huston, Giovanni Ribisi, Michael Rooker, and Sam Worthington, star of Avatar (sometimes dubbed “Dances With Wolves in space”). Some of the trailer’s most memorable imagery shows women breathing through the barrel of a shotgun while hiding underground, horse-drawn wagons bolting across the prairie, and Costner blasting a tent full of enemies with a revolver.
Horizon: An American Saga marks Costner’s fourth directorial project, after 1990’s Dances With Wolves, 1997’s The Postman, and 2003’s Open Range. The film is also Costner’s first project since departing the hit series Yellowstone after five seasons, though the final six episodes of the series will air in November, after Horizon’s debut.
Costner developed the project as four feature-length chapters telling a continuous story. The first chapter hits theaters June 28, while the second will release Aug. 16. Watch the new trailer above.