Man, I would’ve never thought it would come to this.
It’s been confirmed that Yellowstone is officially coming to an end after Season, with the second half of the season set to premiere this coming November. And it’s all but been confirmed that Kevin Costner, one of the biggest stars on the show, will not be returning.
Taylor Sheridan is working on bringing in Matthew McConaughey as a replacement to continue the story with a new spinoff series. Although, it’s been reported that McConaughey wants a ton of money, and to see a script before he agrees (Helen Mirren famously never saw one when they agreed to do 1923), and the other Yellowstone stars like Cole Hauser and Kelly Reilly want a haul too.
“Costner, who had originally limited himself to 65 days of shooting on Yellowstone, only wanted to shoot for 50 days for the first part of the current season.
Paramount Network has declined Costner’s most recent proposal and instead has made the decision to move on to the other show.”
Yeah, not good…
So without John in the mix, there’s a high possibility that Costner’s character John Dutton could get killed off the show. And one Yellowstone star has already thought about this possibility… Wes Bentley, who plays Jamie Dutton on the show.
He discussed what that would look like for Jamie in an interview with Insider:
“I thought about this in Season One because it’s always a possibility in TV, right? We’re always ready to die.
Jamie would have been completely lost. Maybe part of him would be frantic trying to take care of the ranch. He would feel that burden and maybe panic.”
However, considering John is now the governor of Montana, the position that Jamie always dreamed of having, that perspective may have changed.
Not to mention, he sold his dad up the river by calling for his impeachment in the Season 5 mid-season finale:
“After John ran for Governor and became the thing he said he hated, Jamie started to have a change of perspective.
Maybe John is not this tough guy he says he is. Maybe John doesn’t have ideas. Maybe he’s just another guy like the rest of them.
The deity is gone. I think that’s why Jamie’s choosing to try to have him killed. His life would be much better without him, which is a big change for Jamie.”
I guess we’ll have to see if Costner and Sheridan can work out there differences, or if the show will have to make significant changes. Either way, a “moral death clause” in Costner’s contract will prevent him from an embarrassing death, like… getting kicked by a horse or succumbing to chronic diarrhea.
Regardless of what happens, it sounds like it’s gonna come to blows between Jamie and John… and due to the behind the camera nature of the business, it might be Jamie who comes out on top.
