Kevin Costner’s Yellowstone has had a successful run for four and a half seasons since 2018. The show chronicles the lives of the Dutton family, led by John Dutton, as they protect and preserve their ownership of the Yellowstone ranch. However, the series has been embroiled in controversy ever since reports of Costner and series creator Taylor Sheridan’s creative differences started circulating.
Sheridan is known to have complete creative control over his projects and this was one of the reasons for the conflict between him and Costner. Another actress, Kelly Reilly, who plays John Dutton’s daughter Beth Dutton, also echoed how she had to sacrifice her desires for her character and submit to the overall vision that Sheridan had for the show.
Kelly Reilly’s Hopes for Her Yellowstone Character Got Sidelined Due to Taylor Sheridan
Last year, reports started to come out regarding disagreements between Kevin Costner and Taylor Sheridan over various aspects of the Paramount+ series Yellowstone. The problems included money issues (he was supposed to be paid $12 million for each part of season 5) and various creative differences with Sheridan.
This may be due to Sheridan’s intentions to tell his stories his way (via The Hollywood Reporter) and have creative control over the projects he makes. Kelly Reilly talked about Sheridan’s process in a featurette clip that appears on the Blu-ray and DVD release of Yellowstone season five, part one.
The actress detailed how surprising and beneficial it was for her to not know how her character’s arc was gonna turn out as Sheridan never divulged it ahead of time. While she has grown to understand her character more and has ideas about where she wants the character to go, she ultimately surrenders to Sheridan’s vision. She said
“I’m coming to it almost the same as the audience. I mean, I have my hopes and thoughts for the character. Also, as I’ve played her for over five years now, I feel like I know her so well, but I’m still learning. “There are still things that I read and I didn’t expect, or sometimes I wish for something else for her, but that’s the same as the audience“
While Reilly seems to have made peace with Sheridan’s overall creative control and her unexpected character arc throughout the various seasons, Costner does not seem to like this approach. As the lead of the show, he likes to have some control over his character (he even had a moral death provision on his contract via Puck News). It remains to be seen if he returns in part 2 of Yellowstone season 5.
Kevin Costner Would Love to Return as John Dutton in Part 2 of Yellowstone Season 5
Kevin Costner‘s return in Yellowstone is still up in the air and part 2 of season 5 of the show has not begun filming yet. The actor recently spoke to Entertainment Tonight about his hopes for the series and his desire to return as John Dutton for the remaining episodes of the hit Paramount+ show.
Costner stated that he would love to return to the series, but acknowledges that some problems have prevented it from happening. He revealed that the original plan was for seven seasons and now season 5 will be the final one. The actor hopes that everything works out so that he can be there for the series’ farewell. He said,
“I’d like to be able to do it, but we haven’t been able to. 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 this will circle back to me.”
Filming for the remaining episodes of season 5 is expected to start very soon as it is scheduled to premiere on Paramount+ in November 2024. After the end of the series, Matthew McConaughey is set to lead a sequel series titled 2024.