Kevin Costner Won't Return to 'Yellowstone'
by EG
There was already doubt about whether or not Kevin Costner would return to participate in the final few episodes of the series last season. This week, however, Costner made it official on social media. He won't be back to finish out the series' run, and instead he will be focusing on an attempt to build a new film franchise. Costner's proposed Horizon: An American Saga universe will be set in the same context as Yellowstone--a romanticized version of the American West. Read on for details.
It’s official: Kevin Costner will not be returning to Yellowstone.
The actor posted a video to social media Thursday in which he confirmed long-mooted speculation that he was done with Paramount+’s monster neo-Western drama Yellowstone.
“I just want to reach out and let you know that after this long year and a half of working on Horizon and doing all the things that that’s required,” Costner said at the start of the clip, referring to the Western film series Horizon: An American Saga he has been working on, “and thinking about Yellowstone, that beloved series that I love, that I know you love. I just realized that I’m not going to be able to continue, season five or into the future.”
Regarding Yellowstone, Costner said the show “was something that really changed me.”
“I loved it and I know you loved it, and I just wanted to let you know that I won’t be returning,” he continued. “I love the relationship we’ve been able to develop, and I’ll see you at the movies.”
The second half of season five of Yellowstone will return Nov. 10, although an episode count has yet to be announced. There remained lingering hopes that Costner, who played patriarch John Dutton in the Taylor Sheridan-created show, would return, although it was extremely unlikely he would have featured in season five as those episodes are already filming and Costner has been busy with Horizon.
Yet Costner, in recent weeks, has been repeatedly making statements to the press about wanting to rejoin the project — but only if he likes his character’s final arc.
“I loved the show,” Costner told People magazine this week. “I liked the people on the show. I liked what it was about. I love that world…I’ve always felt that…it might be an interesting moment to come back and finish the mythology of this modern-day family. And if that happens, I would step into it if I agreed with how it was being done.”
Much of Costner’s creative energies, and his own personal finances, have been tied up with the independently financed Horizon, an expansive and ambitious series of Western films that he will direct, star in, co-write and produce.
The Oscar-winning filmmaker has mapped out a four-movie series, with Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 hitting theatersJune 28. The first Horizon film cost $100 million to make before marketing but was tracking to open to $12 million earlier this month. Chapter 1 premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, where a tearful Costner witnessed the film receive a four-and-a-half-minute standing ovation.
Get the rest of the story at The Hollywood Reporter.