Kevin Costner Clarifies Schedule Not the Reason for Leaving ‘Yellowstone

Kevin Costner now said that a scheduling conflict had nothing to do with his departure from the hit Paramount+ series “Yellowstone.”

Speaking to Deadline, the 69-year-old actor disputed earlier reports that blamed Costner for the end of the series, claiming it was filming for his western movie “Horizon: An American Saga” that screwed up his character John Dutton’s story, resulting in the end of “Yellowstone.”

“Well, I haven’t felt good about it the last year, what with the way they’ve talked about it,” Costner said. “It wasn’t truthful.”

“So now I’m talking about a little bit about what the real truth of it was,” he added. “I made a contract for seasons five, six and seven [of Yellowstone]. In February, after a two- or three-month negotiation, they made another contract.”

“They wanted to redo that one, and instead of seasons six and seven, it was 5A and 5B, and maybe we’ll do six,” Costner continued. “They weren’t able to make those. ‘Horizon’ was set in the middle, but ‘Yellowstone’ was first position. I fit [‘Horizon’] into the gaps. They just kept moving their gaps.”

Kevin Costner claims ‘Yellowstone’ scheduling’s issues had nothing to do with his new film and everything to do with a lack of scripts. https://t.co/niCp5T8EU4

— Entertainment Weekly (@EW) May 13, 2024

Last year, rumors surfaced that Costner was leaving the show at the height of its popularity. He recently opened up about what caused his departure from the popular series.

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“Somewhere along the line they wanted to change things,” the “Field of Dreams” star said. “They wanted to do 5A and 5B … 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,” he added, noting that Paramount “walked away” from negotiations. “We did negotiate. There were issues about creative. I tried to break the log jam. They walked away.”

Costner previously talked about the final episodes of the series and made it clear that he still hopes he and Paramount can work it out so he can appear in them.

Speaking to Entertainment Tonight about his upcoming movie, the subject of the Taylor Sheridan series came up and the fate of his Dutton character.

“I’d like to be able to do it [Yellowstone] but we haven’t been able to,” Costner said of returning to the series. “…I thought I was going to make seven [seasons] but right now we’re at five.”

“So how it works out — I hope it does — but they’ve got a lot of different shows going on,” he added. “Maybe it will. Maybe this will circle back to me. If it does and I feel really comfortable with [it], I’d love to do it.”

Last year, production was halted in the second half of the season due to what was reported at the time as Costner’s scheduling conflicts — followed by the writers’ and actors’ strikes, as previously reported.

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