“Yellowstone” creator Taylor Sheridan offers his thoughts on the series ending sooner than he expected, which was largely driven by Kevin Costner’s exit from the show…
It’s not clear when exactly “Yellowstone” would have come to an end but there’s no doubt that wrapping up the sprawling modern western during the second half of the ongoing fifth season definitely was not the plan.
Sadly, “Yellowstone” will end with only a few more episodes after series star Kevin Costner ended up at odds with the production, which ultimately led to the decision to completely end the show and then launch a whole new spinoff set in the same universe.
Taylor Sheridan — the co-creator of”Yellowstone” and the driving creative force behind the hit series — reacted to the numerous stories surrounding Costner’s very public exit from the show that led to a truncated ending that will still need to be worked out. The hostility with Costner was ultimately around his shooting schedule as he continued working on a huge production of his own — a four-film Western epic called “Horizon” that has been his passion project for the past 35 years — and the conflict he was having in regards to his future with “Yellowstone.”
While Sheridan admits he hasn’t spoken to Costner directly about this issue in a little while, he knew that the Oscar winner had plans to turn his focus towards his own films, which was going to interfere with his future on “Yellowstone.”
“My last conversation with Kevin was that he had this passion project he wanted to direct,” Sheridan told The Hollywood Reporter. “He and the network were arguing about when he could be done with Yellowstone. I said, ‘We can certainly work a schedule toward [his preferred exit date],’ which we did.
“My opinion of Kevin as an actor hasn’t altered. His creation of John Dutton is symbolic and powerful … and I’ve never had an issue with Kevin that he and I couldn’t work out on the phone. But once lawyers get involved, then people don’t get to talk to each other and start saying things that aren’t true and attempt to shift blame based on how the press or public seem to be reacting. He took a lot of this on the chin and I don’t know that anyone deserves it. His movie seems to be a great priority to him and he wants to shift focus. I sure hope [the movie is] worth it — and that it’s a good one.”
Obviously, Sheridan wasn’t happy that “Yellowstone” would be ending much earlier than he planned but he still expects to deliver the same results as he initially plotted when he was trying to sell his original script as a film rather than a series.
While he doesn’t flat out say what plans he had in store for Costner’s character John Dutton, it certainly doesn’t appear that he was ever expected to survive to the series finale.
“I’m disappointed,” Sheridan said. “It truncates the closure of his character. It doesn’t alter it, but it truncates it. Whether [John Dutton’s fate] inflates [Costner’s] ego or insults is collateral damage that I don’t factor in with regard to storytelling.”
At this time talks are reportedly still ongoing to see about bringing back Costner to at least shoot a handful of scenes or episodes to help close out his character’s arc during the final days of “Yellowstone” but as it stands, there’s still no word when production would even begin again.
The ongoing writer’s strike has brought just about every major television production to a halt including “Yellowstone” as well as the prequel show “1923” that was supposed to start filming this past week. Sheridan has also promised he’s pencils down with his own writing while showing support for the writer’s strike but once he gets back to work, he’s confident that Paramount will give him whatever he needs to close out “Yellowstone” in the best way possible.
Right now the second half of “Yellowstone” season 5 is scheduled for six episodes but Sheridan teases that could absolutely get extended — and Paramount would back that decision as well.
“If I think it takes 10 episodes to wrap it up, they’ll give me 10,” Sheridan said. “It’ll be as long as it needs to be.”
As far as the future goes, Paramount has already announced plans for a “Yellowstone” spinoff with another Oscar winner in Matthew McConaughey in deep negotiations to star in the series. According to Sheridan, he first spoke to McConaughey about potentially working together on something after the actor fell in love with “Yellowstone” and wanted to do something similar in his own career.
“He seems like a natural fit,” Sheridan said about McConaughey. “We had a few conversations over the years, and spitballed a few ideas. Then he started watching Yellowstone and responded to it. He was like, ‘I want to do that.’ And by ‘that’ he meant diving into a raw world clashing up against the modern world. And then I said, ‘Buddy, that we can do.’ “
Now here’s where things get interesting.
The spinoff may have “Yellowstone” in the title but that doesn’t necessarily mean it will be tied directly to the original series or those characters. There’s been no word if any of the actors currently on “Yellowstone” would carry over to a new show and even Sheridan hints at the possibility that fan favorites such as Beth Dutton (played by Kelly Reilly) and Rip Wheeler (played by Cole Hauser) could be done once the original series is finished.
“My idea of a spinoff is the same as my idea of a prequel — read into that what you will,” Sheridan teased.
“There are lots of places where a way of life that existed for 150 years is slamming against a new way of life, but the challenges are completely different. There are a lot of places you can tell this story.”
Sheridan’s “Yellowstone” prequels — “1883” and “1923” — both have ties to the Dutton family and legacy but take place in the distant past long before John Dutton was trying to save his ranch from developers attempting to pick it apart and take it away. Judging by his comment, the “Yellowstone” spinoff could just as easily be set in a different part of the country with McConaghey at the center of the story but that doesn’t mean Beth Dutton, Kayce Dutton or anyone else from the original series would have to be involved.
That said, Sheridan admits that he’s only got the “broadest of strokes” put together for that potential spinoff so anything is possible once that show becomes a reality.
For now the waiting game begins on when “Yellowstone” season 5 could start production again and despite initial plans to drop those episodes starting in November, it seems highly likely the show won’t come to a conclusion until sometime in 2024.
