Is the door slightly opening on a Kevin Costner return to Yellowstone?
At this point, I think most fans would be happy with any sort of resolution to the TV show that exploded onto the scene back in 2018. Between the writers and actors strikes, behind the scenes drama, and a boatload of new projects that have taken creator Taylor Sheridan’s attention away from his flagship series, we’ve grown accustom to long periods of waiting, especially for seasons 4 and 5.
The second half of season 5 is scheduled to debut in November of this year but a shadow hangs heavy over the return as Kevin Costner, who plays family patriarch John Dutton, is not expected to return.
Hollywood insider Matt Belloni said the following on an episode of his podcast The Town late last year:
“Yellowstone will probably go back into production at the beginning of the year. So it could be out this spring or summer. Scripts are already written, I’m told, or are being written. And the question is whether Costner is in those final episodes of this season of Yellowstone.
And my understanding is that, as of now, he is not going to be in those episodes.”
Of course, nothing was final and last month a report came out from Puck, via Screen Rant, saying that Costner may be trying to appear for at least a Cameo in the finale:
“Now, Puck reports that Costner now wants to come back for Yellowstone season 5 part 2, hoping to return as John for at least a cameo in the final season. However, filming is set to start in a few weeks while scripts for the last batch of episodes have already been finalized.
The report indicates it’s unclear if Sheridan would be willing to alter his scripts to give the actor one last appearance om the show.”
To be fair, all of this was unsourced reports, but just yesterday Entertainment Tonight released part of an exclusive interview with Kevin Costner himself while backstage at CinemaCon and he addressed his interest in returning to finish a show he will always be remembered for:
“I’d like to be able to do it but we haven’t been able to… 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. 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.”
The “lot of different shows going on” is certainly an understatement for Taylor Sheridan, who’s put out a volume of work that’s hard to compete with over the past few years. From Yellowstone spinoffs like 1886 and 1923, to crime dramas like Mayor Of Kingstown, and other westerns like Lawman: Bass Reeves, not to mention an upcoming series titled Landman, it’s hard to imagine Sheridan even having time to sleep, let alone focus on creating top notch TV shows. You can watch all of the series mentioned above on Paramount+, and if you click here, you can get a 7 Day Free Trial to test it all out before paying a dime.
Costner went on to say he has his opinions on where his character should end up, but at the end of the day, it’s all in Taylor Sheridan’s hands:
“Well, you know, he needs to be proactive in what happens and I’ve kind of had my own fantasy how it might be, but that’s Taylor’s thing. I said as much to him a while back. I had thoughts how it could happen, but we just have to see.”
To be honest, I don’t know how sincere these words by Costner are.
On one hand it makes sense that he’d want to return to finish what he started, but on the other, it sure seems like his attention has moved to his own multi-part movie titled Horizon: An American Saga, so I guess time will only tell if there will be any movement on this. Also, it’s been rumored that he and Taylor Sheridan had creative differences over the storyline and it sounds like Costner is, in a nice way, confirming that.
I, for one, sure hope he comes back to wrap up the show, but I won’t be holding my breath…
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