Kevin Costner finally breaks the silence on his departure from “Yellowstone” after season 5 and declares his intention to go to court over the premature end of the series.
Nothing is going right in Yellowstone anymore! With the show’s future still up in the air due to ongoing strikes, Kevin Costner has finally broken his silence on his departure from the show. After being the star actor of this neo-western for four seasons, Kevin Costner has revealed that he will be leaving the series after season 5.
According to various sources, his departure is due to creative problems with co-creator/showrunner Taylor Sheridan and scheduling conflicts for his epic four-movie western project, Horizon: An American Saga.
His departure resulted in the outright cancellation of the series, with season 5 becoming the final chapter of the program. But a sequel with Matthew McConaughey leading the cast was planned instead.
After initially refusing to discuss any plans for the future of the series, we learn via Deadline that Kevin Costner broke the silence on his departure from Yellowstone. During his last testimony in the context of his divorce, the star revealed that he would “goprobably in courtregarding his premature departure from the series.
He also confirmed that he had been in talks at one point to stay on until the end of Season 7, but that they fell through due to creative issues with Taylor Sheridan and that in his attempts to “break the deadlock“, the producers ended up “leave“.
A true end for Yellowstone?
Until now, Kevin Costner has remained silent about the nature of his departure from Yellowstone, instead seeking to promote Horizon during its production, while the big unpacking surrounding his divorce has shed some light on the matter.
Costner has lately refused to answer questions about the nature of his departure from the show, as court documents have previously confirmed that his contract has come to an end, with the actor saying during the trial that he “would earn significantly less in 2023 than in 2022“and that all the money he made would be”contractual participation rights at the end of the contract“.
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Kevin Costner was expected to return to shoot Yellowstone Season 5 Part 2, which would end the series and his role as John Dutton. But the actor’s plans to take legal action over his departure could ultimately derail it all.
The current strikes by the WGA (Writers Guild of America) and SAG-AFTRA – the screenwriters’ and actors’ unions respectively – have suspended production of the final episodes of the series indefinitely.
And while Costner didn’t give a timeline for his legal action, the actor could end up filing a lawsuit before production even begins.
Confirmation by Kevin Costner that he was in talks for at least two more seasons of Yellowstone indicates plans for the series ending have been thrown off balance by his untimely departure.
With the series currently at the height of its popularity, thanks in part to the success of its 1883 and 1923 spin-offs, it’s unclear how long Taylor Sheridan intended to keep the series on the air, but the departure Costner’s smash could well prove embarrassing for the future of the franchise.