• The Houthis have stepped up their attacks and intimidation efforts with their drone boats.
• In their latest messaging, the rebels shared a new video of a previously unseen system in action.
• The uptick comes as the US Navy lacks an aircraft carrier in the region.

The US Navy is in the middle of changing up its forces in the Middle East. An aircraft carrier that spent months in the counter-Houthi fight heads home, leaving a gap as another one makes its way toward the region to take over.

It has been over a week since the US last had an aircraft carrier on station in the Red Sea, meaning the Pentagon can't depend on the routine combat air patrols and immense firepower having a carrier in the region has provided over the past seven months.

The Houthis have been stepping up drone boat operations, employing small watercraft that can be packed with explosives and detonate on impact. These weapons can be used to strike merchant vessels and cause catastrophic damage, which has already been the case in at least one instance in recent weeks.

Drone boats are not a new capability for the Houthis. They have employed them in years past and throughout their ongoing campaign of attacks on merchant vessels and commercial shipping lanes.

During the first few months of the year, US airstrikes in Yemen destroyed the drone boats nearly every time the Houthis tried to send them into the water. But in June, the Iran-backed rebels managed to launch well over a dozen crafts — far more than they had in any previous month. Last month, one of the Houthi drone boats struck a commercial vessel, the MV Tutor, for the first time since the campaign began in November.

In the June 12 attack, the Houthis used a small, slow-moving boat staffed with two dummies, appearing to disguise the crude-looking weapon as a common fishing craft. Hours after the initial strike, the rebels hit the Tutor with a missile, causing it to later sink.

More than a week after the Tutor attack, on June 22, the Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group, which spent more than seven months battling the Houthis, finally left the region to head home, bringing with it the carrier Ike and dozens of fighter aircraft.

The Ike's eventual replacement — the Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group — won't arrive for some time. And in the meantime, the Houthis appear to be taking advantage of the decreased US Navy air patrols and employing more drone boats.

United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, an element of the British Royal Navy, has reported multiple incidents over the past few days that appear consistent with such attacks.

On June 27, for instance, UKMTO cited one threat as a "waterborne improvised explosive device," and on June 30, it said a merchant vessel was approached by "a mixture of fast boats and smaller kayak-type boats," adding that "some were observed as uncrewed."

On June 30, the Houthi rebels revealed what they said is a highly advanced drone boat that can travel at speeds of 45 nautical mph and deliver an explosive payload of up to 3,300 pounds. The group claimed to have used the drone boat in a June 23 attack on the MV Transworld Navigator and published footage purporting to show the unmanned craft strike the much larger merchant vessel.

Business Insider was unable to immediately verify the Houthi claim. US Central Command said at the time that the Transworld Navigator was hit by a "suspected uncrewed aerial system" and did not mention a drone boat.

In the June 30 video, the Houthis also showed the drone boat going through various maneuvers and training exercises. At one point, rebels can be seen manually operating the craft before they dive off the side into the water and allow it to be remotely piloted.

The newly revealed drone boat is far more sophisticated-looking than the one that struck the Tutor and appears notably larger than unmanned crafts that the rebels publicized and tested earlier in June, underscoring the different capabilities that the Houthis have in their arsenal.

Experts have said that the uptick in drone boat attacks and the Houthis' newfound success in striking commercial vessels with such weapons indicates that they're learning from their many months of attacks and are able to adjust their operations accordingly.

• A Florida man admitted to shooting a Walmart drone last week, law enforcement officials said.
• For the past decade, gun owners have been shooting at UAVs — in violation of Federal regulations.
• Now, as more retailers use drones, armed Americans may add further complication to delivery by air.

Retailers have had to solve a long list of technological, regulatory, and commercial challenges in order to offer deliveries by drone.

But one complication remains especially difficult to predict: US gun owners.

In the latest episode, the Lake County Sheriff said last week that Dennis Winn admitted to shooting a Walmart drone with a 9mm pistol as it flew near his home in Florida.

According to the arrest affidavit, Winn told officers he had prior experience with drones flying over his house and believed the aircraft to be surveilling him.

He then went inside, got his gun from a safe, came out, and fired one shot at the drone, which was roughly 75 feet in the air, the affidavit said.

"I then told him that he had struck a Walmart drone," the Sheriff's deputy said in the affidavit. "The defendant looked in disbelief and questioned, 'Really?'"

The Sheriff's Office said a bullet hole was found in the payload area of the drone after it flew back to a nearby Walmart.

The office said Winn was taken into custody and faces three charges, including "shooting at an aircraft."

In the past decade, some US gun owners have shot at unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, but what many may not realize is they are committing a serious crime in the eyes of the federal government.

The Federal Aviation Administration doesn't distinguish between a small drone and a jumbo passenger jet when it comes to attempts to sabotage commercial aircraft: shooting at one is a felony, punishable by a fine and up to 20 years in prison.

Even though the FAA has held this position since 2016, the message doesn't seem to have gotten through to some people. The agency only recently started allowing unmanned commercial aircraft to fly beyond the operator's direct line of sight.

In the past two years alone, incidents in North Carolina, Florida, and California made headlines when individuals with guns targeted drones — two of which belonged to law enforcement.

As more retailers use drones, armed Americans pose a potential complication to deliveries by air.

Two years ago, when Amazon was rolling out a test of its drone delivery service in California, The Washington Post reported that one man at a local archery shop joked that it was "Target practice!"

Now Walmart is expanding its use of drones beyond the initial test markets, where the company says it has conducted over 20,000 safe deliveries. The retail giant's goal is to have the "largest drone delivery footprint of any US retailer."

And Walmart isn't alone. Earlier this year, DoorDash announced a drone delivery test with a Wendy's restaurant in Virginia, and several Chick-fil-A restaurants have tested the tech in recent years as well.

Perhaps if drones become common enough, people will simply stop noticing — or shooting — them.

Democrats are scrambling to control the damage after Biden's poor debate performance. The president says he will stay in the race despite calls to step aside.

• Airbus' A321XLR promises airlines new long-haul market options as it nears certification.
• Boeing's absence at an upcoming international airshow means all eyes will be on Airbus' new plane.
• Thanks to its extra rear center fuel tank, the narrowbody can fly up to 11 hours nonstop.

Boeing's quality control problems following the Alaska Airlines door plug blowout have forced it to scale back production and cut delivery targets for its 737 Max aircraft.

To better focus on cleaning up its latest Max mess, the manufacturer is not bringing any passenger planes to the Farnborough International Airshow this year, one of the aviation industry's biggest and most-attended events.

With nothing commercial to show from Boeing, which usually has its 777X and Max test jets on display, all eyes will be on European rival Airbus. Of particular interest is the planemaker's new, soon-to-be-certified single-aisle aircraft, the Airbus A321XLR.

Airbus has secured over 550 orders for the highly-anticipated "Xtra Long Range" model from American Airlines, Frontier Airlines, JetBlue Airways, United Airlines, Spain's Iberia, India's IndiGo, Qantas, Malaysian low-cost carrier AirAsia X, Chile-based budget carrier Sky Airline, Czech Airlines, and others.

The XLR plane is the longest-ranged option in the A321neo family, which has outsold Boeing's 737 since 2019, when two fatal crashes grounded the plane's Max variants.

According to Airbus, the XLR is uniquely equipped for long-haul flying, thanks to an extra rear center fuel tank that helps the narrowbody fly up to 5,400 miles (11 hours) nonstop.

It also boasts a 30% reduced fuel burn compared to previous-generation competing aircraft, with half the trip cost of dual-aisle planes, according to Airbus.

The XLR's enhanced range and economics make it a versatile option for airlines wanting to capitalize on niche money-making long-haul markets but without the costs or capacity of a widebody plane.

Historically, Boeing's 757 was the prime transatlantic narrowbody option, but airlines like JetBlue Airways and Air Canada have since shifted to the more efficient A321neoLR and Max, respectively, between the East Coast and Europe.

The XLR's design builds on this growing long-haul trend and is expected to open new city pairs that would otherwise require a layover or wouldn't financially make sense to fly.

Fortunately, airlines and customers won't have to wait much longer.

In May, Airbus announced that the XLR was in the final stages of certification, noting heavy paperwork has prolonged the process beyond the initially expected June timeline.

Still, Unlike Boeing's Max 7 and Max 10 planes — which are sitting in certification limbo — Airbus expects the XLR to enter service as soon as November.

Airbus' new XLR jet will open route options that are otherwise difficult

Spanish national carrier Iberia is the launch customer for the XLR and is selling tickets for the first-ever passenger flight from Madrid to Boston on November 14, according to its website.

Flights to Washington Dulles will follow on January 15. The XLR will replace the Airbus 330 widebody Iberia is presently flying to Boston, while the Dulles route will be a new offering.

According to Iberia, its new XLR planes will feature 182 seats across economy and business cabins, though the plane can carry up to 220 people in two classes.

The premium seating offers lie-flat beds typical to what customers find on long-haul widebody flights, and is likely to be the norm on long-haul XLRs.

JetBlue plans to install its Mint business class, for example, while American plans to install its XLRs with new Flagship suites.

In March, American's managing director of global network planning, Jason Reisinger, said the XLR is favorable because it enables the airline to serve "routes that cannot support a 787 but where we still have a nice onboard product."

He suggested routes like Raleigh, North Carolina, direct to London — meaning passengers wouldn't have to stop in the carrier's Charlotte or New York hubs along the way.

Meanwhile, United's EVP and CCO, Andrew Nocella, said during a 2019 order announcement that the XLR would be a good replacement for the "older, less-efficient aircraft currently operating between some of the most vital cities in our intercontinental network."

IndiGo and Frontier's XLR orders suggest the plane fits into both mainline and budget models.

IndiGo's former CCO Willy Boulte said in the summer of 2021 that the XLR would fill the gaps in flying between Indian cities and Europe and Asia, pointing to options like Beijing, Seoul, and Amsterdam.

Frontier CEO Barry Biffle has suggested that the XLR may allow Frontier to ditch its mostly domestic presence to serve more cities in South America, and launch new services to Hawaii and Europe.

Airbus said the XLR could also be used on already popular routes that may sometimes benefit from a lower-capacity option.

"Even well-established city pairs such as London-Miami or Sydney-Kuala Lumpur will benefit from the year-round sweet spot the XLR offers airlines," Airbus marketing specialist Ludek Jando said in September 2023.

• SCOTUS limited federal agencies' regulatory powers with recent rulings. 
• One legal expert said the high court is clearly "hellbent" on dismantling the administrative state.
• Because of the rulings, the regulation of essentially all major industries will be tougher. 

In two separate rulings over 48 hours last week, the conservative majority of the United States Supreme Court overturned a 40-year-old precedent that has been long attacked by the right — and has stripped out some of the Securities and Exchange Commission's financial-fraud enforcement capabilities.

The conservative majority, in another 6-3 ruling on Monday, made it easier for government regulations to be contested.

"At the end of a momentous Term, this much is clear: The tsunami of lawsuits against agencies that the Court's holdings in this case and Loper Bright have authorized has the potential to devastate the functioning of the Federal Government," Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in her dissent of the court's Monday ruling in the case of Corner Post v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

Justice Elena Kagan, in her dissent to the Friday decision to strike down the legal precedent known as the "Chevron deference" in the case of Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, called the Friday ruling "yet another example of the Court's resolve to roll back agency authority, despite congressional direction to the contrary."

Legal experts and regulation advocates told Business Insider they largely agreed, with one law professor saying that the nation's highest court is clearly "hellbent on dismantling the entire regulatory apparatus put in place over the course of the 20th century."

"These rulings make it impossible for the agencies that Congress itself created to respond quickly and efficiently to newly emerging problems," said Robert Hockett, a Cornell University professor of law and finance.

Thanks to the recent SCOTUS rulings, the regulation of essentially all major industries, ranging from environmental protection to finance and public health, will be much tougher and could result in a more overburdened court system.

Before Friday's ruling, if the Environmental Protection Agency, for example, identified an oil company practice that unduly risked an oil spill, it would first issue a cease-and-desist letter. The oil company might then claim that the EPA has the facts wrong or lacks the regulatory authority to address the practice, Hockett said.

Then, according to Hockett, the case would be heard by an administrative court. If the oil company disagreed with that administrative judge's ruling, it could appeal and ultimately land in a court — but wouldn't do so if it couldn't point to an obvious error by the administrative law judge, Hockett said.

Now, under the ruling, the case would go right to a federal court.

"No ALJ [Administrative Law Judge]. Straight to federal court. Court with overloaded docket scheduled hearing to the year 2035. Oil spills everywhere and renders North America uninhabitable in the meantime while we wait," Hockett said, offering an extreme example.

"The upshot of this is that all of the country's largest business firms in all of its major industries will go effectively unregulated or de-facto unregulated because Congress and the courts will not be able to keep up with the pace of change in our economy," said Hockett.

The legal expert likened the matter to a "robber baron's dream."

"These two rulings largely amputate the two most important arms that our regulatory agencies use every day in overseeing our industrial economy," Hockett said, referring to the the Chevron and SEC rulings.

In overturning the Chevron doctrine in a 6-3 decision, the high court has hamstrung federal agencies' regulatory powers.

The doctrine, established in the 1984 Supreme Court case Chevron USA v. Natural Resources Defense Council, called for courts to defer to federal agencies' interpretations of ambiguous federal laws and statutes. It has been repeatedly used by the federal government in a wide range of cases.

Chief Justice John Roberts, in his opinion, wrote that the Chevron doctrine "proved to be fundamentally misguided."

"Perhaps most fundamentally, Chevron's presumption is misguided because agencies have no special competence in resolving statutory ambiguities. Courts do," Roberts wrote.

The chief justice continued, "Courts must exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority."

The overturning of the Chevron precedent and Thursday's SEC v. Jarkesy decision both involve cuts in the regulatory powers of federal agencies, "which means reductions in the power of the executive branch of government and an increase in the power of the judicial branch," said Jonathan Siegel, a professor of law at George Washington University.

As a result, over the long term, Siegel said, "It will be more difficult for the government to enforce many statutes, and therefore, there will be more violations."

"Particularly in terms of businesses, they decide what to do based not only on what's legal and what's illegal, but what is the likelihood that they will actually suffer a penalty if they do something illegal," he said.

Siegel explained that the decision in SEC v. Jarkesy has the "potential to affect innumerable agency proceedings."

Up until Thursday, the SEC had two ways of pursuing fraud cases. It could sue in federal court, or it could bring an "administrative proceeding" in its own in-house court, where it appoints its own judges and the cases have no juries.

Roberts wrote in the decision that the latter method violated the Seventh Amendment of the US Constitution, which protects the right to a jury trial.

"It's certainly the case that the court and some individual justices even more strongly have expressed distaste for the amount of power administrative agencies have, and several decisions that the court has come down within the last few years have the effect of reducing that power and increasing the power of courts," Siegel said.

Rachel Weintraub, the executive director of the regulation advocacy group Coalition for Sensible Safeguards, said that the common thread between the decisions "is that it is the manifestation of a conservative quest to minimize the role of the federal government."

"The public expects government to do certain things. It expects the government to ensure that roads are safe and toasters don't explode, and that the water coming from our faucet doesn't cause our families harm, and that there are protections in workplaces, and that our marketplaces are fair, and that there will be consequences if entities scam us," Weintraub said.

These factors, said Weintraub, "could be at stake if judges replace agency expertise with their own positions."

In the case of Corner Post v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Supreme Court ruled that a six-year statue of limitations in challenging federal agencies under the Administrative Procedure Act begins "when the plaintiff is injured by final agency action."

"The Supreme Court last week made it all but impossible for federal agencies to accept future Congressional assignments of rule-making authority by overturning its own 40-year-old Chevron decision," said Hockett.

"Today it effectively makes that retroactive, by permitting any newly formed corporation to challenge rules that have been on the books for decades," Hockett said, explaining that before Monday's decision a statute of limitations legislated by Congress "ensured that a rule that had gone unchallenged for six years was settled law."

Now, Hockett said, "every rule, no matter how long it has been in place and no matter how long corporations have been operating with a settled understanding of it, will be up for grabs."

Jesse Panuccio, who served as US acting associate attorney general in the Trump administration, was less alarmed by the recent SCOTUS decisions, saying "agencies still have vast delegations of power."

Panuccio told Business Insider he represents private parties who are in lawsuits against the government, and he believes it's important that there are three branches of government "with interdependent functions."

Panuccio said that he supported the Supreme Court decisions in Loper Bright and Jarkesy and called them "important checks on administrative power."

There is never an "even playing field" between the government and a private party — and having a ruling like this in place is the way to ensure parties are in front of a neutral judge, he said.

"And I think we have gone too far, no matter who the president is, the executive branch wields more power than I think the Constitution really envisions," he said. "And these opinions are important."

• Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis lived all over, from New York apartments to East Coast mansions.
• She said her family's "happiest years" were those spent with President John F. Kennedy in the White House.
• Here are all of the impressive places she lived in and owned in her lifetime.

Throughout her life, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis has lived in grand estates and luxury apartments, including the White House when her husband, President John F. Kennedy, served as president.

She grew up in spacious New York apartments and several-acre estates, and after her marriage, she spent her summers at the famed Kennedy Compound and winters on the family's estate in Palm Beach. Though out of all the impressive properties she has resided in, she said her family's "happiest years" were those spent with her husband in the White House.

Here are all of the impressive places she lived in and owned in her lifetime.

Before she was a Kennedy or an Onassis, Jacqueline Lee Bouvier spent her early years in New York City.

In 1932, the Bouviers moved into an apartment on the sixth and seventh floors of 740 Park Avenue.

The apartment building was developed by her grandfather, James T. Lee. At least for a period, her father couldn't afford to furnish it so Jackie and her sister could roller skate from room to room.

The apartment building later became a home for billionaires and was once considered one of the most iconic apartment buildings in the city.

In 2017, her old apartment sold for $25.25 million.

In the 1940s, Bouvier's mother remarried, and they left New York.

They moved into a Georgian-style mansion called "Merrywood" in McLean, Virginia, in Washington, DC.

The mansion, which was built in 1919, sits on the edge of the Potomac River and covers 23,000 square feet.

Bouvier's mother had married an oil magnate named Hugh D. Auchincloss, who owned the mansion.

At the time, it had nine bedrooms and 13 bathrooms, as well as an extensive garden. 

Bouvier wrote fondly about the house in her diary, saying, "I always love it so at Merrywood — so peaceful … with the river and those great steep hills."

Bouvier spent her summers at her paternal grandfather's East Hampton estate called "Lasata," which means "place of peace," in the native Algonquian language.

The house, which was 8,500 square feet, was built in 1917 and sat on about seven acres.

Earlier this year, the fashion designer, Tom Ford, bought it for $52 million.

She also spent some of her summers at her maternal grandfather's house in East Hampton called "Wildmoor."

The 18th-century home, covering about 5,700 square feet, was a shingle-and-clapboard wooden house with a view of fields, a swamp, and the sea, The Wall Street Journal reported.

In 2021, the house was sold for $6.8 million.

Her next notable property was the Kennedy family's summer home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.

Joseph Kennedy Sr., John F. Kennedy's father, bought a white-shingled cottage in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, for $25,000 — about $450,000 today. The coastal Massachusetts cottage became the Kennedy family's home base for years to come.

Before they were married, Bouvier and John F. Kennedy spent some time together there, which later became known as the "Kennedy Compound."

The Kennedys bought the house in 1928, Town and Country reported.

In 1953, Bouvier became a Kennedy when the couple married in Newport, Rhode Island.

They had the wedding reception at her mother's husband's sprawling estate, known as "Hammersmith Farm," anchored by a grand, 28-room Victorian-era mansion.

The property was last sold in 1999 for just over $8 million.

The estate became a part-time summer home for the Kennedys, along with the Kennedy Compound.

Jackie Kennedy spent summers on the estate during her childhood, and the Kennedys later vacationed there in the summer of 1961.

In 1953, not long after the Kennedys were married, they rented a four-story, four-bedroom house in Georgetown at 3321 Dent Place.

The Kennedys lived there for almost two years.

They enjoyed throwing dinner parties and spending time in its back gardens.

The house is about 3,000 square feet.

Two years later, in 1955, the Kennedys moved to "Hickory Hill," another Georgian-style house.

This one was built in 1815 and had a tennis court, a pool, and 12 fireplaces on a 5.6-acre plot in McLean, Virginia.

They bought it from Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson.

Two years later, the Kennedys sold it for $250,000 to John's brother, Robert, who would end up raising his own family there.

Jackie didn't want to go back after her daughter was stillborn.

Robert Kennedy was at the house when he heard John had been assassinated, the Baltimore Sun reported. He spent an hour alone, walking around the estate.

In 1956, the Kennedys bought a summer home at 111 Irving Avenue in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, right beside the original Kennedy summer home.

The 4,484-square-foot clapboarded home sat on less than an acre of land and soon became part of the "Kennedy Compound."

They spent $45,948 on the house.

In 1957, the Kennedys bought 3307 N Street, an 18th-century brick row house in Georgetown, for $82,000.

Jackie spent about $18,000 on remodeling it, and she decorated the house with armchairs and good porcelain.

Her husband campaigned and was elected president during their years here, Architectural Digest reported.

Though not officially a property she owned, Jackie lived in the White House with her family during her husband's presidency from 1961 to the end of 1963.

She later described this period as her family's "happiest years," The Daily Beast reported.

During the winters, while they were living in the White House, they vacationed at her father-in-law Joseph Kennedy's Palm Beach estate.

The Palm Beach estate became known as the Kennedys' "winter White House." In 2020, the house sold for $70 million and underwent extensive renovations by the new owner.

In 1963, after her husband was assassinated, Jackie and her children left the White House and moved into an 18th-century home at 3017 N Street in Georgetown.

She paid around $175,000 for the five-bedroom house but only lived there for about a year. It was too public, and she reportedly became overwhelmed with all of the tourists.

In 2017, it was purchased for $5.25 million.

In 1964, Jackie and her children moved back to New York after she discreetly bought a 5,300-square-foot apartment on the 15th floor of 1040 Fifth Avenue for $200,000.

The apartment had five bathrooms, three fireplaces, two terraces, and a library.

It also had a view of Central Park.

Jackie Kennedy owned the apartment until she died in 1994.

It was bought from her estate in 1995 for $9.2 million. 

The buyer said she hadn't done much upkeep, and they ended up gutting the whole apartment.

While she was alive, she began dividing her time between France, Greece, Martha's Vineyard, and New Jersey.

She kept New York as a home base.

She also got married again in 1968 to a Greek shipping magnate named Aristotle Onassis and became Jackie Onassis, or "Jackie O."

In 1974, Onassis purchased a country home — a converted barn on almost 10 acres — for $200,000 in Peapack, New Jersey.

She liked the area for its natural beauty and space for horse riding.

She knew the area well because she had previously rented a farmhouse described by The Times as a "badly made-over barn" in Bernardsville since 1965.

After she bought the property, she painted it yellow with white trim.

After Onassis died, her neighbor and friend, Marjorie McDonnell Walsh, bought the Peapack property for $1.47 million in 1997.

Walsh told The Wall Street Journal they tore the house down.

"It doesn't matter," she said when declining to share details about the new house. "The much more important thing is we both love the property. It's a private valley. It's beautiful."

In 1979, after her second husband died, Jackie decided to build a new house called "Red Gate Farm," on 340 acres of land in Martha's Vineyard.

She only spent a little more than $1 million on the land, and then another $3.1 million on building the house, which was finished in 1981. The main building covers 6,456 square feet.

There's also a four-bedroom guest house, a pool, and a tennis court. The property stretches across a mile of beach.

In 2020, it was put up for sale for $65 million.

Editor's note: This story was first published in September 2023 and has been updated with additional information.

Correction: July 1, 2024 — An earlier version of this story included a photo caption that misidentified a man pictured with Jackie Kennedy Onassis in Paris. The photo has been removed.

• Kevin Costner's "Horizon" was a bust at the box office, making only $11 million in its first weekend.
• Costner invested over $38 million in the movie and paid for its marketing himself. 
• "Yellowstone" fans may not have been enough to help "Horizon" beat out other big draws in theaters.

Kevin Costner is the latest star to be reminded that passion projects don't always yield big box-office returns.

The former "Yellowstone" actor quite literally bet the ranch on "Horizon: An American Saga," mortgaging his property in Santa Barbara and investing $38 million of his own money into the three-hour film, which is intended to be the first in a four-part series about Western expansion before and after the Civil War. (Part two is set for release on August 16.)

But so far, Costner's gambit on the movie he directed, cowrote, and stars in hasn't paid off: "Horizon: An American Saga" brought in only $11 million on a $100 million budget in its opening weekend.

This isn't the first time Costner has had a passion project go sideways. He produced, starred in, and later took over directing duties in 1995's "Waterworld," an ambitious postapocalyptic blockbuster described as "Mad Max" on water. He sank $22 million of his own money into the film, which was then considered one of the most expensive movies ever made. When critics saw it, they also gave it the distinction of being one of the worst movies ever made.

But "Horizon" was supposed to be different. The Oscar-winner had been riding high off the success of his hit TV show, "Yellowstone." Surely its tens of millions of fans would follow Costner to theaters to watch him in another Western, one he directed this time. Right?

At least on opening weekend, that's not what happened. Audiences instead spent their cash on sure things, like sequels or stories from existing IP. "Inside Out 2" led the domestic box office for a third straight weekend and has now grossed over $1 billion worldwide, making it the first movie to do so since last summer's "Barbie." In second was "A Quiet Place: Day One," a prequel in the popular thriller franchise, which took in an impressive $53 million domestically, making it the biggest opening ever for the franchise.

The "Yellowstone" fans weren't enough

Though Costner had been crafting a story about the exploration of the American West for decades, it wasn't until he played John Dutton in "Yellowstone" that "Horizon" finally became a reality. And it was that fandom that Warner Bros. hoped would come to theaters for "Horizon," bringing box-office glory.

The Paramount+ series was the most-watched cable series in 2018 and 2019; it went on to score close to seven million viewers in its broadcast debut on CBS in the fall of 2023. The conventional thinking among box-office trackers was that "Yellowstone" fans would be the core audience to come out to support "Horizon," hopefully leading to a $15 million to $20 million opening.

Despite the film's poor reception from critics at its Cannes Film Festival world premiere and its 40% Rotten Tomatoes score, the thinking was that Costner's core audience would come through despite a few bad reviews (the movie has a 71% audience score, after all).

And they did — sort of. Warner Bros.' weekly box-office report revealed that the top five theaters that were major earners for "Horizon" were in regions of the country where "Yellowstone" is popular and cowboys still roam: Utah (where the "Horizon" franchise was shot), Texas, Arizona, and Oklahoma.

So, while Costner and WB were successful in marketing the movie, it wasn't enough. Though the "Yellowstone" fans are mighty, "Horizon" needed more manpower to compete with established draws like "Inside Out 2" and "A Quiet Place: Day One."

Costner isn't as prominent in the 3-hour movie as marketing would suggest

Even though "Horizon" needed more than just "Yellowstone" die-hards to win at the box office, that core audience may not have been entirely satisfied, either.

Despite being the face of the franchise and its star, Kevin Costner isn't actually in a lot of "Horizon." In fact, he doesn't show up until an hour into the movie and is rarely seen afterward. As Hayes Ellison, a rustler on the run after killing a man, the movie occasionally checks in on how he's doing, but most of it revolves around Native Americans attacking a settlement called Horizon, the soldiers at a nearby Army post, and a wagon train traveling to Horizon.

The movie's lack of Costner is a major flaw. Unlike on TV, where teasing the eventual appearance of a star will draw audiences back for the next episode, it's tougher for movies to take that approach when viewers must wait more than a week — usually months or even years — for the next installment. And even though the next "Horizon" movie comes to theaters in August, who's to say audiences will come back? Especially if they aren't certain their star will be on screen for most of the movie.

Self-financed auteur projects rarely deliver

The shaky start for Costner's passion project could go one of two ways. While there are a few times in film history when a director put their own money into a film and reaped huge rewards (see: George Lucas' "Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back," Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ"), most of the time, directors who self-finance never see that money back — just ask Orson Welles or Francis Ford Coppola.

It's too soon to say if that will happen to Costner (even "Waterworld" broke even — though it took years), but he is on the hook for the film franchise, and he's likely in deeper than the $38 million price tag that's been previously reported.

According to Variety, Costner and his investors are paying for the "Horizon" marketing, a spend that's around $30 million. Warner Bros. is only taking 8% of the movie's box office grosses. That means if the movie can rebound, the star will take a substantial share of the grosses. If it doesn't, he'll have to deal with the losses.

That could hurt the franchise down the line.

Though "Horizon: Chapter 2" is set for an August 16 release and "Chapter 3" has begun principal photography for a May 2024 release, "Chapter 4" is still only in development. Whether Costner will ultimately be able to complete his four-part saga could very well become a saga of its own.