Kevin Costner Makes a Staggering Amount of Money From ‘Yellowstone’

John Dutton is a wealthy man both on and off screen. Yellowstone star Kevin Costner is currently in the middle of a contentious divorce from his wife Christine Baumgartner, and court documents obtained by The Messenger have revealed Costner’s salary for the Paramount Network hit.

The numbers, as expected, are huge. According to the documents, Costner earned about $11 million for Season 4, or $1.1 million per episode. For Season 5, that increased to $1.25 million per episode, or $10 million for the eight episodes that have aired so far, and Costner also reportedly receives a share of any future profits. Based on the per-episode amounts, these amounts would put him high on the list of highest-paid TV stars, just under what James Gandolfini made for The Sopranos. Yellowstone hasn’t even aired since January 1, but Costner has earned millions in 2023, including $2.85 million for Season 5, $1.8 million in profit participation, and nearly $42,000 in residuals. He also testified that he is still owed money in profit participation, though he refused to reveal the amount.

It was also noted in the divorce documents that Costner “refused to answer questions about whether he was offered the opportunity to star in Season 6,” or any questions about his status with the show in general. He also further explained that Horizon, Costner’s four-film passion project, “left little time to continue work on Yellowstone.”

The truth may be that Costner does not know his status with Yellowstone. In May, Paramount announced that Yellowstone

 would be ending with the second half of Season 5, though both writing and production have been stalled. That’s partially due to the current WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes and partially due to Costner’s desired schedule. He and Yellowstone  creator Taylor Sheridan have reportedly come to blows over the future of the character, with Costner refusing to go back to filming until he knows how Sheridan plans to write him out, but Costner also reportedly only wants to film for about a week total.

In a Hollywood Reporter profile in June, Sheridan said that the disagreement was between Costner and Paramount Network, and Sheridan was perfectly willing to write toward Costner’s preferred exit date. He also said that Costner’s desire to leave doesn’t “alter” John Dutton’s ending, but it does “truncate” it, and it sounds like the Dutton family patriarch is headed for the train station, which is the show’s way of saying RIP.

Lucky for fans of the ever-growing Yellowstone universe, there are plenty of spinoffs in the works that wouldn’t involve Costner at all. After the back half of Season 5, there’s a second season of 1923 to look forward to, as well as a sequel spinoff potentially starring Matthew McConaughey. Plus, Sheridan is developing a series about the Four Sixes Ranch, a famous Texas horse ranch that he now partly owns and has featured on Yellowstone. Something tells us both Costner and the Duttons will be just fine, no matter what happens.