For well over a year, Kevin Costner and the producers of “Yellowstone” have been at a stalemate about Costner returning to the top-rated drama on all of cable. Anonymous sources on the producers’ side have blamed Costner for the hold-up, accusing him of bailing on “Yellowstone” so he could make his passion project, the Western film series “Horizon.”
Now, with the Cannes premiere of “Horizon” imminent, Costner has given his side of the story about what happened with “Yellowstone” in the greatest detail he has yet shared.
In a new interview with Deadline, Costner said that mismanagement from Paramount and production company 101 Studios is to blame for the chaos around Season 5B, which has been delayed since early 2023. After Season 4, he signed on for three more seasons, but then the producers kept renegotiating contracts and changing schedules, which frustrated him Costner said. He added that he was willing to do what he was contractually obligated to do on Season 5B and then some, but Costner claimed showrunner Taylor Sheridan didn’t have scripts ready.
“‘Horizon’ was set in the middle, but ‘Yellowstone’ was first position,” he said of the scheduling. “I fit “Horizon” into the gaps. They just kept moving their gaps.”
He hit back at the claim that he was only willing to film for a week on Season 5B, which Deadline reported back when the news broke that “Yellowstone” was ending. He said that he had already fulfilled his contractually obligated days to “Yellowstone” and was willing to work an extra week to make up for the script-related delays. And they spun in it the media as he was only willing to work for a week.
He painted “Yellowstone” as a consistently chaotic production that started and ended production late every season and took an unplanned 14-month break between Seasons 3 and 4 where he couldn’t work (Costner does not mention that this break coincided with the pandemic, but it did). He had accommodated the “Yellowstone” process for years, but just couldn’t anymore, because he had obligations to make “Horizon.”
“If you aren’t going to really start when you say you’re going to start and you’re going to fudge at the end — I understand production, I get that perfectly. Writing is really hard. I get it,” he said. “But in my instance, I have real obligations. I had 400 people waiting for me on August 1, and I worked a nine-day week to help them as much as I could.”
He said that he’s still willing to return to “Yellowstone,” but he’s very unhappy with how he was portrayed in the media and how no one from the show stuck up for him. “If they’ve got so many other things going on, maybe this circles back and it’s a really cool two seasons. Or end it, if the writing’s there and I’m happy with it. I’m open to that,” he said. “But I took a beating over these guys not speaking up for me and allowing crazy stories to come out.”
As it stands now, filming on the final episodes of “Yellowstone” is scheduled to start this month, without Costner. It’s slated to premiere on the Paramount Network in November and be succeeded by a sequel series, also without Costner.
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