The lengthy and protracted public feud between Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan and leading man Kevin Costner โ US$12 million in unpaid salary and all โ has done very little to dampen the latterโs enthusiasm for a potential return to the hit neo-Western series.
โIโd like to be able to do it but we havenโt been able to,โ Costner recently told Entertainment Tonight, who famously opted for an early exit to direct his own self-funded Western epic Horizon: An American Saga.
โI thought I was going to make seven [seasons] but right now weโre at five. So how it works out โ I hope it does โ but theyโve got a lot of different shows going on. Maybe it will. Maybe this will circle back to me. If it does and I feel really comfortable with [it], Iโd love to do it.โ
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The man behind John Dutton III also elaborated on how heโd ideally close off his character arc.
โWell, you know, [John Dutton] needs to be proactive in what happens and Iโve kind of had my own fantasy how it might be, but thatโs [Taylor Sheridan]โs thing. I said as much to him a while back. I had thoughts about how it could happen, but we just have to see.โ
While Sheridan himself has voiced his disappointment for how this ongoing behind-the-scenes drama effectively โtruncates the closureโ of Kevin Costnerโs revered character, the Yellowstone storyโs conclusion had been decided for some time now.
โI know how it ends. Iโm writing to that ending,โ Taylor Sheridan confirmed during a 2021 interview with The New York Times.
โThereโs only so much hovering one can do before the story starts to lose its locomotion โ you canโt put it in neutral just because itโs successful.โ
โIt will go as many years as it takes for me to tell the story, but youโre not going to see nine seasons of it. No way.โ
Elsewhere, the actor-turned-powerhouse Hollywood creative added: โYou have to move in a straight line toward that end. You canโt walk in circles, waiting to get there, because the show will stagnate.โ
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โYou have to keep moving forward, and there have to be consequences in the world, and there has to be an evolution toward a conclusion. Can that be another two seasons beyond this? It could.โ
In the lead-up to the first part of season 5โs premiere, Taylor Sheridan hinted that a beloved family member was on track to be killed off (โIf you look at everyone as a chess piece in [Yellowstone] season 5, it is impossible to keep playing the game without taking chess pieces off the board.โ). But like we said before: if Rip Wheeler dies, we riot.
As for when we can expect the second part of Yellowstone season 5 to premiere, which will ostensibly serve as the flagship seriesโ finale, keep an eye on your streaming queues sometime around November 2024.
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