Taylor Sheridan Discusses John Dutton's Fate
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Given the drama surrounding the end of Yellowstone, including Kevin Costner's reportedly difficult scheduling demands, fans have wondered whether creator Taylor Sheridan wouldn't just kill off his leading man with, say, a stray bullet or a swift kick of a horse. But in a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter (Sheridan's first to address Costner's exit), the empire-building showrunner assured viewers that he would do no such thing.
“I don’t do f–k-you car crashes,” Sheridan said. “Whether [John Dutton’s fate] inflates [Costner’s] ego or insults [him] is collateral damage that I don’t factor in with regard to storytelling.” (Mind you, Sheridan's Sons of Anarchy character got run over by a van after the actor/writer/director quit the show.)
Related: A Complete List of Taylor Sheridan's Many Paramount Series and Movies
Reports that Costner and Sheridan were at odds over scheduling issues first surfaced in February and came to a head in May, when Paramount Network confirmed that Yellowstone would end with Season 5. That news was quickly followed by a report that Costner only wanted to spend one week shooting the back half of the show's final installment (a claim his lawyer called an "absolute lie").
Related: Wes Bentley Is Down for the Yellowstone Spinoff ... If His Character Lives
“My last conversation with Kevin was that he had this passion project he wanted to direct,” Sheridan told THR, referring to Horizon, the four-part Western that Costner is co-writing, directing and starring in. “He and the network were arguing about when he could be done with Yellowstone. I said, ‘We can certainly work a schedule toward [his preferred exit date],’ which we did.”
Although Sheridan says his "opinion of Kevin as an actor hasn’t altered,” he hasn't spoken to him in quite a while either.
"...Once lawyers get involved, then people don’t get to talk to each other and start saying things that aren’t true and attempt to shift blame based on how the press or public seem to be reacting," he told THR. "He took a lot of this on the chin and I don’t know that anyone deserves it. His movie seems to be a great priority to him and he wants to shift focus. I sure hope [the movie is] worth it—and that it’s a good one."
On a slightly crushing note, Sheridan admits that Costner's abrupt exit from the show "truncates the closure" of his character. "It doesn’t alter it," he said. "But it truncates it."
Next, Everything You Need to Know About the Final Chapter of Yellowstone
