News of Season Five’s final episodes make no mention of Costner’s involvement.
As the alleged feud between Yellowstone‘s Kevin Costner and series creator Taylor Sheridan rages on, Paramount is charting a course forward. Previous reports about the doomsday scenario for the popular western drama warned that the star would not return after the Season Five finale. Now, new information regarding Paramount’s plan to finish the series has only offered more questions that answers.
The final episodes of Yellowstone Season Five will premiere in November 2024, The Hollywood Reporter reveals. Two spinoffs will follow soon after, with one taking place in the present day, and the other one set in 1944. While it’s great that the rest of Season Five is finally on the calendar, the news doesn’t answer whether or not Costner will return to say goodbye to the Dutton family patriarch. According to new information from Hollywood insider Matthew Belloni, Costner may not appear at all. “My understanding is that, as of now, he is not gonna be in those episodes,” Belloni stated on his podcast, The Town.
Costner last spoke about his tenure on the show publicly during his divorce hearings this past September. The actor said in his testimony that he will “probably go to court” over the Yellowstone drama. “We did negotiate,” Costner revealed to Deadline, noting that he was already paid for Season Five and was offered $24 million for a potential sixth and seventh season. “There were issues about creative,” he continued, referencing his ongoing battles with Sheridan. “Somewhere along the line, they wanted to change things. They wanted to do 5A and 5B; [it] affected Horizon. I was going to do my movie Horizon and leave that show, do my movie, then do B. A show I was only doing once a year I was now doing twice.”
Costner is also dealing with his divorce to estranged wife Christine Baumgartner. The relationship was reportedly tested by his filming schedule on both Yellowstone and Horizon, which may have led to the couple’s separation after 19 years of marriage. The reported feud between Sheridan and Costner—supposedly over everything from on-set egos to filming schedules—has also left the cast and crew confused and frustrated. According to Belloni, the rest of the episodes were reportedly being written with various levels of Costner’s involvement in place.
Meanwhile, Paramount is moving forward with several spinoff series to keep the franchise alive. Taylor Sheridan currently has plans for a second season of 1923, a spinoff focusing on the 6666 Ranch, and a new sequel series. (It’ll be the first new project for the Paramount Network that retains Yellowstone in the title—which is a big positive for a series that once sold its streaming rights to Peacock.) But with the strike and Costner’s involvement up in the air, we may not know just what direction Yellowstone is heading in until after the Season Five finale.
