The lengthy and protracted public feud between Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan and leading man Kevin Costner — US$12 million in unpaid salary and all — has done very little to dampen the latter’s enthusiasm for a potential return to the hit neo-Western series.
“I’d like to be able to do it but we haven’t been able to,” Costner recently told Entertainment Tonight, who famously opted for an early exit to direct his own self-funded Western epic Horizon: An American Saga.
“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.”
RELATED: The ‘Yellowstone’ Empire Is Crumbling
The man behind John Dutton III also elaborated on how he’d ideally close off his character arc.
“Well, you know, [John Dutton] needs to be proactive in what happens and I’ve kind of had my own fantasy how it might be, but that’s [Taylor Sheridan]’s thing. I said as much to him a while back. I had thoughts about how it could happen, but we just have to see.”
While Sheridan himself has voiced his disappointment for how this ongoing behind-the-scenes drama effectively “truncates the closure” of Kevin Costner’s revered character, the Yellowstone story’s conclusion had been decided for some time now.
“I know how it ends. I’m writing to that ending,” Taylor Sheridan confirmed during a 2021 interview with The New York Times.
“There’s only so much hovering one can do before the story starts to lose its locomotion — you can’t put it in neutral just because it’s successful.”
“It will go as many years as it takes for me to tell the story, but you’re not going to see nine seasons of it. No way.”
Elsewhere, the actor-turned-powerhouse Hollywood creative added: “You have to move in a straight line toward that end. You can’t walk in circles, waiting to get there, because the show will stagnate.”
RELATED: The Western Movie Kevin Costner Ditched ‘Yellowstone’ For Has A Full-Length Trailer
“You have to keep moving forward, and there have to be consequences in the world, and there has to be an evolution toward a conclusion. Can that be another two seasons beyond this? It could.”
In the lead-up to the first part of season 5’s premiere, Taylor Sheridan hinted that a beloved family member was on track to be killed off (“If you look at everyone as a chess piece in [Yellowstone] season 5, it is impossible to keep playing the game without taking chess pieces off the board.”). But like we said before: if Rip Wheeler dies, we riot.
As for when we can expect the second part of Yellowstone season 5 to premiere, which will ostensibly serve as the flagship series’ finale, keep an eye on your streaming queues sometime around November 2024.
RELATED: How ‘Yellowstone’ Creator Taylor Sheridan Built His Net Worth
