Kevin Costner’s Yellowstone Season 5 Hit With Delay After Behind-The-Scenes Drama?
A Yellowstone season 5 scheduling conflict between Kevin Costner and Taylor Sheridan could lead to Costner leaving the series.
Scheduling conflicts between Kevin Costner and Yellowstone showrunner Taylor Sheridan during season 5 could lose Costner his role for season 6. Originally, Costner was rumored to have only scheduled a week to film the second half of Yellowstone season 5. Though these rumors have been put to rest, Costner’s schedule on his upcoming show Horizon could potentially push the release of the second half of the Yellowstone season to later this fall, a delay that could have Paramount choosing to work without Costner in the future, according to Whiskeyriff.com.
Kevin Costner plays John Dutton, the family patriarch of the Dutton family, which the Paramount neo-western show focuses on. Costner has led the cast of this series for five years and is currently filming Yellowstone season 5, so a continuation of the show without him seems almost impossible and downright depressing to those who love him in the series. Unfortunately, this may be a reality Yellowstone fans will soon face if Costner and series creator Taylor Sheridan cannot agree on the filming schedule.
Recently, rumors online spread that Costner had limited himself to only 65 days of filming, 50 of which were used up for the first half of the season, and that Costner wanted to limit filming the second half of Yellowstone season 5 to only a week. Additionally, the rumors stated that Costner was also looking to leave the show and would possibly be replaced by Matthew McConaughey. Costner’s lawyer put these rumors to rest quickly, stating they were an “absolute lie.”
However, it seems as though these lies were based on some sort of truth, as the scheduling conflicts between Sheridan and Costner have been revealed to be absolutely real. Costner did, in fact, limit himself to a tight filming schedule for Yellowstone season 5 as the production of his new western series is fast approaching. Horizon, which Costner created, produces, directs, and stars in, finished filming the first half of season 1 last fall and is scheduled to begin filming the second half this spring.
According to Costner’s team, Yellowstone season 5 was meant to be finished filming by the end of 2022, leaving Costner free to film the second half of his new series without conflict. Unfortunately, Sheridan’s busy schedule caused the series creator to deliver scripts late, move the schedule around based on his timeline, and ultimately push the filming dates for the second half of the season way past when production should have been concluded. Then, as luck would have it, Costner contracted COVID at the beginning of 2023, which pushed back filming even further.
As Costner’s team reported, Costner was within his rights to charge the dates of his illness to his window of availability for the show, thus limiting the timeframe to complete Yellowstone season 5 even further. This behind-the-scenes drama has caused major delays in the show’s production that may not be resolved until after Costner finishes filming the second half of Horizon early this summer. Meaning the second half of Yellowstone season 5 might not begin production until this summer or even later.
While Paramount has said they would like to continue working with Costner on a long-term basis, the production delays could cause some serious mind-changing that might end up with Yellowstone getting rid of their lead.
