The final six episodes of the fifth and supposedly final season of runaway Western success Yellowstone are due to air in November – almost two years after the first half of the series aired in January 2023.
Yellowstone has been a huge hit for studio Paramount and creator Taylor Sheridan, with over 12 million people tuning in to follow the fortunes of the Dutton family at their Montana ranch.
But the series has been plagued by production delays due to the 2023 Hollywood writers’ strike, compounded by scheduling issues with star Kevin Costner. The Academy Award-winning cowboy aficionado plays John Dutton III, the patriarch of the family, but appears to have departed the series.
Will Kevin Costner be in the episodes?
Costner is in the trailer for the season finale, but it’s unclear how much of this is fresh footage.
In Costner’s divorce from Christine Baumgartner last year, he claimed he was still owed a reported $12 million by Paramount from the yet-to-air final episodes.
The actor took to Instagram earlier this year to apparently confirm he had left the show to focus on directing his four-part series of Western films, Horizon: An American Saga. “Thinking about Yellowstone, that beloved series that I love, that I know you love. I just realized that I’m not going to be able to continue, season five or into the future,” Costner said.
The trailer for Yellowstone season five’s final episodes
Costner had originally signed to star in a sixth and seventh season, which it now sounds like he won’t be appearing in – if indeed they happen at all. The star also reportedly had a clause in his contract staying he would have the final say on how his character dies in the series. Hence the legal disputes between the actor and the studio.
Sheridan expressed he was “disappointed” that Costner had decided to leave the show and focus on his own film. "It truncates the closure of his character. It doesn't alter it, but it truncates it,” Sheridan told The Hollywood Reporter.
At the end of the mid-season finale most of the character’s were at each other’s throats, providing the script writers with ample opportunity to bump Costner’s character off.
Will there be more seasons of Yellowstone?
It appeared to be settled that, with Costner’s departure, the original Yellowstone would be capped at five seasons. There are already multiple spin-offs in multiple timelines, and Sheridan teased an idea for a Matthew McConaughey-fronted sequel.
However, a new rumour has it that Paramount is now considering a sixth season after all.
These scoops about Yellowstone come from Puck Hollywood, an insider newsletter run by journalist Matthew Belloni. According to Belloni, Paramount is currently sounding out the current cast – sans Costner – to return for more installments. Variety confirmed from their own sources that Kelly Reilly, who plays Beth Dutton (John Dutton III’s daughter) and Cole Hauser, who plays Rip Wheeler (Beth’s husband) are in talks with the studio.
To confuse matters even more, Costner had previously told People magazine that he could be tempted to return to Yellowstone – if he liked how the story played out. “It might be an interesting moment to come back and finish the mythology of this modern-day family,” he said. “If that happens, I would step into it if I agreed with how it was being done.”
How are all the Yellowstone spin-offs related?
With the modern cowboy series proving such a runaway success, it’s perhaps unsurprising that Sheridan has spun off as many star-studded series in the franchise as he possibly can.
Yellowstone is set in the present day. Season one, which aired in 2022, was set in 2018 and has run chronologically up to 2023 in season five.
The first prequel is 1883, with the name the year the show is set. Starring Tim McGraw as James Dillard Dutton, the great-grandfather of Costner’s John Dutton III, and McGraw’s real-life wife Faith Hill as his wife Margaret, it followed the family as they leave Tennessee, join a wagon train, and eventually settle in Montana to found the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch. There were 10 episodes in the stand-alone series.
Next is 1923, sequel to 1883 and another prequel to Yellowstone. Harrison Ford played Jacob Dutton, brother to McGraw’s James, and Helen Mirren played his wife Cara Dutton. In keeping with its setting, it followed the Dutton’s fortunes through Prohibition and the start of the Great Depression. The first season has aired, and a second is reported to be underway.
A third prequel, called 1944, has been announced, but details are still firmly under wraps.
Then there’s the rumoured sequel to Yellowstone, initially titled 2024. This was the series that McConaughey was allegedly in talks to star in. This seems to have become The Madison, a spin-off starring Michelle Pfeiffer as part of a New York City family living in Montana’s Madison River Valley.
On top of all that, Sheridon is also working on 6666 – pronounced four sixes – starring Jefferson White, who plays Jimmy Hurdstrom in Yellowstone. Jimmy was a ranch hand on the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch but was banished to the Four Sixes Ranch for breaking a promise to John Dutton III that he would stop riding in rodeo competitions. Production on 6666 is yet to start, although the series creator has now purchased the actual ranch that inspired the Four Sixes Ranch in his series for a cool $350 million (£269 million).
Yellowstone season five part two will air on Paramount on 10th November at 8pm Eastern Time
