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The hit TV show Yellowstone may come to an abrupt end at the end of its current season as star Kevin Costner looks to limit his filming time.
Deadline reports that the 68-year-old actor had asked Paramount Network executives to allow him to spend just one week filming the second half of season five while he works on his own passion project.
Costner, who recently won a Golden Globe for his portrayal of John Dutton on the show, is now directing and starring in his own multi-part epic western, Horizon, which he co-wrote with Jon Baird. It has been picked up by Warner Bros. Pictures and New Line Cinemas.
But unnamed sources familiar with the negotiations said network executives have turned down his offer and are instead moving forward with a new spinoff series starring Matthew McConaughey.
The True Detective star is reportedly already in negotiations with the network for a new show to air on the Paramount Network and will air exclusively on Paramount+.
Kevin Costner, 68, has reportedly asked Paramount Network executives to allow him to film the second half of the current season of Yellowstone in just one week.
Now network executives are said to be moving forward with a new series starring Matthew McConaughey (pictured in 2018)
Sources familiar with the negotiations say Costner had already limited himself to 65 days of filming in Yellowstone, and then wanted to shoot just 50 days for the first half of his current season.
But for the second half of the fifth season, sources told Deadline, Costner only wanted to spend a week filming.
While he stars on the show as John Dutton, the patriarch of the Dutton clan, the proposal frustrated show creator Taylor Sheridan and is said to be causing morale issues among other members of the cast, which includes Luke Grimes, Kelly Reilly, Wes Bentley, Cole Hauser. , Kelsey Asbille and Gil Birmingham.
Network executives decided to reject Costner’s demands, the sources said, and instead made the decision to go ahead with a spinoff show starring Matthew McConaughey.
Costner’s show can now wrap up with the second half of its current season, which aired its eighth episode in early January and is scheduled to return in the summer.
In a statement, a Paramount Network spokesperson neither confirmed nor denied the news, saying only: “Kevin Costner is a big part of Yellowstone and we expect that to be the case for a long time to come.”
“Thanks to the brilliant mind of Taylor Sheridan, we are always working on franchise extensions of this incredible world that she has built.”
The spokesperson added: “Matthew McConaughey is a phenomenal talent, who we would love to partner with.”
Costner plays John Dutton, the patriarch of the Dutton clan, on the hit TV show
His proposal to film the second half of the fifth season is said to have caused low morale among the rest of the cast. Kelly Reilly, Wes Bentley, Luke Grimes, Kevin Costner, Taylor Sheridan, Kelsey Asbille and Dave Annable appear here at the Yellowstone premiere in June 2018.
Yellowstone has been a boon for the cable news network and its streaming platform.
As Deadline reports, the success of the 1883 and 1923 prequel series, as well as expectations for upcoming shows, have made the studio less reliant on the hit series than it was just two years ago.
1883, starring country music stars Tim McGraw, Faith Hill and Sam Elliott, was released in December 2021 and told the story of how the Duttons came to own the sprawling Montana-based Dutton Ranch.
It was followed the following year by 1923, starring Helen Mirren and Harrison Ford. The show will return for a second and final season, chronicling the family’s woes during Western expansion, Prohibition and the Great Depression.
Sheridan is also said to be planning two other limited series documenting the family’s struggles to keep the ranch in the 1940s and 1960s.
Showrunner Taylor Sheridan (left) was also said to be upset by Costner’s proposal. The two appear here with Costner’s co-star, Reilly.
Sheridan has expanded the world of Yellowstone with the prequel series 1883 and 1923. The TV executive producer is shown here in December 2021 with musician Tim McGraw, who starred in 1883.
Meanwhile, Costner is working on his own project, which stars Luke Wilson, Sienna Miller, Sam Worthington and Jamie Campbell Bower.
Horizon will take place over a 15-year period of “expansion and settlement of the American West before and after the Civil War.”
It will be told through the perspectives of several different characters, following a number of factors on their journey, including the “attack of natural elements” and their interactions with the Native American characters.
The project will also show the “determination and, in many cases, the cruelty of those who tried to solve it.”
The film will mark Costner’s first directorial effort in nearly 20 years, since 2003’s Open Range Western, in which he also starred with Robert Duvall and Annette Bening.