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Pop Culture Flashback: Kevin Danced with Wolves (Oct. 19)

Did you sit through Kevin Costner’s three-hour epic “Dances with Wolves”? How about the four-hour version that opened in London theaters a year later?

October 19, 2026

Kevin Costner’s three-hour western, Dances with Wolves, isn’t for everyone, but it did just fine when it premiered on this day back in 1990 thank you very much.

1990: Epic ‘Dances with Wolves’ Premieres

By 1990, Kevin Costner was a big movie star with sights on more. Dances with Wolves was his first film that he developed. He starred, directed and produced the three-hour epic which premiered in Washington, D.C. on this day in 1990. Initially, studios rejected the movie for being too long and a doubt that a western would do well. They were wrong. The movie made the #2 spot of Critics Top 10 list for Best Movies of 1990. It was a good investment too. It was made with an initial budget of $15 million and made $242.2 million worldwide.

Based on the 1988 book of the same name by Michael Blake (who also wrote the screenplay), Costner played the role of John L. Dunbar, a Union Army lieutenant who traveled to the American frontier to find a military post and his interactions with a group of Lakota Native Americans. Costner chose to avoid negative Native American stereotypes while also including a lot of dialogue spoken in the Lakota language. Costner also performed most of his own stunts which only added to the film’s realism.

Dances with Wolves was nominated for an even dozen Academy Awards and won seven Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Editing, Best Cinematography, Best Original Score and Best Sound Mixing.

Blake wrote a sequel novel, The Holy Road, as well as a film adaptation, but Kevin Costner said that he would never make a sequel. However, a four-hour version of the movie (using footage that was cut from the original) opened in London the following year.

OTHER EVENTS THAT HAPPENED ON THIS DAY:

2018 – The Scream Queen Reigns

There is a reason why Jamie Lee Curtis is known as the “scream queen.” She got the title shortly after appearing in the 1978 film, Halloween. Though she appeared in three of the franchise’s sequels, it was her appearance in 2018’s chapter (also called Halloween for some reason) that has made a real impact.

The film made a record $77 million for a horror movie that starred a female lead. It was the biggest debut of any film with a female lead over the age of 55.

(It should also be noted that Jamie Lee Curtis also starred in the FOX TV series, Scream Queens from 2015-2017.)

2020 – We’re Out of Peanuts

The Peanuts gang lift up Charlie Brown and Snoopy — *The Peanuts Movie (20th Century Studios)*

Good grief. It was on this day that Apple TV (then Apple TV+) announced that they had won the rights to all of the Peanuts TV specials. After 54 years of being shown on CBS and then later ABC, A Charlie Brown Christmas, It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown and A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (and all of the others) would no longer be shown on regular broadcast television.