Off-Screen Yellowstone Drama Might Delay Season 5 Return Until November
We've mentioned before that there's a very real possibility of Yellowstone losing its lead actor, Kevin Costner, who stars as John Dutton, the lead character and patriarch of the Dutton family on the show.
The off-screen drama had not abated since then.
There's an ongoing conflict between Costner and series creator Taylor Sheridan. It is certainly caused by scheduling problems.
According to one version, these problems arose as Costner increasingly shifted his attention to his own Western film series, Horizon which he co-wrote, produced, directed and will star in.
As Deadline originally reported:
"Costner, who had originally limited himself to 65 days of shooting on Yellowstone, only wanted to shoot for 50 days for the first part of the current season.
But for the second batch of episodes of the current, fifth season of Yellowstone, the actor, who just won best television actor in a drama series at the Golden Globes, only wanted to spend a week shooting."
The studio responded with "we have no news to report." Meanwhile, Costner's attorney Marty Singer, has vehemently denied those rumors:
"The idea that Kevin was only willing to work one week on the second half of Season 5 of Yellowstone is an absolute lie."
Furthermore, Costner's team in turn blamed Taylor Sheridan for poor scheduling, missing deadlines, and scripts not delivered on time, excused any earlier problems with Costner's availability as the results of the COVID delay, and insisted that he made up all the lost filming time eventually:
"When the Covid delay hit, Costner did charge those days to his window of availability, but he performed exactly as his contract required."
According to the pro-Costner side, all of Season 5 was supposed to be filmed in 2022, and Sheridan is primarily to blame for this schedule slip.
We cannot tell who is in the right here, but we can tell that negotiations between Costner and Paramount are still ongoing.
And this almost certainly means that the second half of Yellowstone Season 5 won't air until the upcoming fall, probably November.
After all, production for that second half is by now likely going to take place in late summer and/or fall, the time frame at which Season 6 was originally supposed to be filmed, so a delay appears inevitable.