“Don’t talk to me about man-to-man”: Kevin Costner is Open to Yellowstone Return but Settling His ‘Fight’ With Taylor Sheridan is Out of the Question Now

Kevin Costner’s career arc has led him from the dredges of the ’80s to the highest peak in the present. His journey from Malibu Hot Summer (1981) to becoming the star of the biggest television show, Yellowstone, to breaking the internet with his self-financed American Western, Horizon: An American Saga, it has simply been one news-making moment after another for Costner.

However, the movie star-turned-director’s passion project would have meant nothing if not for Taylor Sheridan’s mega-successful Paramount show. Costner investing a portion of Yellowstone’s salary alongside putting his Napa Valley property up as collateral puts him at a similar mad-genius spectrum as Francis Ford Coppola when it comes to making one’s passion projects come true.

But his Yellowstone experience quickly turned sour that left Costner with one big question for Sheridan: “Why don’t you stick up for me?” – especially when the fans and media were intent on smearing his reputation and tearing him to shreds over his broken promise.

Taylor Sheridan Shoots Himself in the Foot With Costner Deal

Kevin Costner knows the extent of his sacrifice that made him take such a drastic step with Yellowstone after months of negotiation and years of commitment. In an interview with Deadline, Costner cleared up any trace of confusion and suspicion about him in the court of public opinion.

Despite his contract to do only one season of the show, Costner extended his stay when Taylor Sheridan demanded him for three more. After Season 4’s turn-out, he further signed a contract for Seasons 5, 6, and 7, the latter two of which swiftly got canceled and replaced by Seasons 5A and 5B.

Costner and Sheridan sat through months of negotiations and settled on a schedule to shoot the subsequent season. Meanwhile, Costner, having already extended his commitment from one season to five, couldn’t push back his passion project further and made appointments to film Horizon in the gaps between filming Yellowstone Season 5.

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However, Sheridan went back on his word about filming Yellowstone Season 5 in the given timeline and prioritizing other shows over his debut series. This proved to be the breaking point for Costner that ultimately tipped him over the edge and made him walk out on Taylor Sheridan for the sake of Horizon.

Kevin Costner Testifies About the Yellowstone Drama

In his May 2024 Deadline interview, Kevin Costner revisited his entire contentious saga with Taylor Sheridan and Yellowstone that has broken fans’ expectations all over the world. Costner claimed:

“They didn’t have the scripts. And they wrote these other three shows. They don’t ever talk about that. And all they did was remember we were releasing [Yellowstone] in June, then it moved to October. They covered by changing their release pattern. That time was about a 14-month period.

I said, ‘I can’t ever go through that again, where you shut down for over a year and I don’t have something in line to do.’ All I did was protect myself, but I didn’t put myself in first position, over Yellowstone. I filled the gaps.”

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Costner further explained his actions after the interviewer suggested the actor could have sorted out any future confusion if only Taylor Sheridan and he sat down for a tête-à-tête:

“There were three negotiations. I didn’t initiate any of that. Well, we did on the first one, and that’s why I signed it to do February. And then we weren’t doing that, and [Season 5] went from 10 episodes down to eight. So don’t talk to me about man-to-man. I was straight up with him and he said what we would do and I believed him and we didn’t get there.”

If there were ever any remnants of hope between Kevin Costner and Yellowstone director making up, then that bridge has been burnt to smoke and ashes. However, nowhere in his rant did Costner once mention that he would never return to keep his promise to film the finale. As such, fans’ expectations rise again with the little kernel of a possible closure to John Dutton’s character arc.

Yellowstone is available for streaming on Paramount+.