It’s been a wild ride for Yellowstone fans this year, and while there’s still a long wait ahead before the long-promised finale episodes of the series, it’s looking increasingly likely that at least one famous face from the cast won’t be making an appearance. A new report from Hollywood insider Matt Belloni indicates that Kevin Costner, who plays one of the show’s protagonists, John Dutton, will not be returning for the final set of episodes.
“Yellowstone will probably go back into production at the beginning of the year. So it could be out this spring or summer,” Belloni said on an October 30 episode of his podcast The Town—it’s since been announced that the show will return in November 2024. “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.”
The possibility of Costner’s participation, or lack thereof, in the second half of season five (the first half of the season debuted November 2022, giving way to a protracted season hiatus) has been the source of speculation for some time. Earlier this year, Costner announced that he would be exiting the series after the fifth season—shortly afterwards, it was revealed that the show itself would be coming to a close after the second half of the season, likely to be replaced with the in-the-works spin-off show currently titled 2024.
Documents related to Costner’s divorce this summer seemed to call this continuing role on the show into question. In them, the actor wrote, “I will earn substantially less in 2023 than I did in 2022. This is because I am no longer under contract for ‘Yellowstone,’ the principal source of my income last year.” In a later hearing, Costner added, “I’ve been told it’s a little disappointing that [it’s] the #1 show on TV, I’m not participating.”
A report by Puck has since stated that Costner’s Yellowstone contract includes a “moral death” clause, which gives general terms for the ways that John Dutton can and cannot be killed on the show, however no official announcements about Costner’s role in the series’s final episodes have been made by the actor’s team or the production.