So yes, Deadline broke the news that Kevin Costner will not make it past part of “Yellowstone,” season 5, which we should see this summer.
I’m told that there is no love lost between “Yellowstone” creator Taylor Sheridan and Costner.
“The people there hate him,” my source says. “They hate each other. He’s very demanding. He’s impossible.”
The big stumbling points aren’t just time, as described in Deadline. “It’s all about money,” my source says. “Kevin wants more of it, he’s very bad with money.”
Indeed, a posting went up in the last two weeks that Costner is renting his sprawling Aspen, Colorado ranch for — drum roll, please — $36,000 a night. Even though he’s made a lot of money from “Yellowstone,” let’s not forget Costner has seven children and who knows how many people on his payroll.
None of this, as a friend of mine used to say, makes him a bad person. But I’m told Paramount is over the whole thing. This makes sense, too, because when Costner first announced his “Horizon” project, I wrote here that Paramount would scoop it up in order to stay in business with their “Yellowstone” star.
And then, surprise! Costner made his deal with New Line/Warner Bros. “Horizon” has turned into an 11 hour massive project for him, too, ballooning in cost and scope. Sound familiar? That was the same thing with “Waterworld” and “The Postman,” which were notorious bombs.
It would be easy to write Costner aka John Dutton out of “Yellowstone” and introduce Matthew McConaughey as a new central character. There have also been clues dropped in the press that Dutton’s days are numbered. If his character met a demise, it would not affect any of the prequels about the Dutton family, either.
Meantime, Costner gave an eloquent, beautiful speech this past Saturday night honoring Clive Davis and remembering Whitney Houston at Davis’s pre-Grammy gala. As time goes by, Costner’s devotion to Houston, his “Bodyguard” co-star, has grown and grown.
Paramount Responds to ‘Yellowstone’ Cancellation & Kevin Costner Departure Rumors: Report
On Monday, Deadline dropped a bombshell article citing everything from the ending of Yellowstone with Season 5 to a disgruntled Kevin Costner being replaced with Matthew McConaughey. As the biggest entertainment shocker to hit in recent memory, the report has spread like wildfire. But is any of it true?
To find out, I reached out to Paramount reps whom I’ve been working with for multiple years. The studio’s response at large is the same as the one given to Deadline (repeated below). But the direct response from Paramount execs makes it clear that Yellowstone isn’t going anywhere.
In short, Yellowstone will continue past Season 5’s second half as previously thought. Paramount has no intention of cancelling their most successful property/the most watched show on television, and this has been confirmed to me by multiple Paramount execs on the backend.
As for Kevin Costner‘s continued involvement, Paramount refers back to their blanket statement while emboldening the first sentence:
“We have no news to report. Kevin Costner is a big part of Yellowstone and we hope that’s the case for a long time to come”
Paramount Network spokesperson
And as for Matthew McConaughey, well, there is truth to that budding relationship:
“Thanks to the brilliant mind of Taylor Sheridan, we are always working on franchise expansions of this incredible world he has built. Matthew McConaughey is a phenomenal talent with whom we’d love to partner.”
Paramount Network spokesperson
To be clear, this is where the facts stop. Everything else is speculation.
How Will Matthew McConaughey Factor Into ‘Yellowstone’?
Last year, our team couldn’t shake a particular idea, which resulted in ‘Yellowstone’ Needs to Cast Matthew McConaughey as ‘6666’ Lead: Making the Case. Texas’ most famous actor and the biggest show on television feel a natural fit, especially with the show spending half of Season 4, then all of Season 5 shifting the show towards Texas.
And it makes sense for Yellowstone‘s showrunner and mastermind to do so, too. Like McConaughey, Taylor Sheridan was born and raised in Texas. Sheridan is also the real deal, having grown up on a Texas ranch before cowboying across the American West ever since. It’s who he is. So much so, in fact, that he’s transformed his Yellowstone fortune into the purchase of the largest and most famous ranch in the state, The Four Sixes.
With Sheridan now owning the namesake for the next show we’re (expecting) to see from his partnership with Paramount, we’d expect McConaughey to enter as part of the 6666 spinoff. We’ve received no updates on 6666 as a property in a good long while, however.
Instead, my gut tells me that 6666 has been absorbed into Yellowstone for the time being, and that those rumors of McConaughey signing on and replacing Costner are born of him joining Yellowstone proper sooner rather than later. And we could him down on the Four Sixes as Jimmy Hurdstrom’s (Jefferson White) story continues.
We’ll find out more as Yellowstone returns to finish filming Season 5 this spring.