Since the news broke earlier this year that the hit western drama Yellowstone will be ending after season 5, apparently in large part due to the exit of star Kevin Costner, speculation has swirled as to why the actor would choose to depart the successful series. Last week, as part of his ongoing divorce from wife Christine Baumgartner, Costner revealed new details in court about the issue, including the contributing factors that led to his decision to leave the show.
One of the factors, according to Costner, was the choice to split season five into two parts, requiring two separate periods of filming before the season could be completed. Per People, he said that there was a “long, hard-fought negotiation” over the decision, which would force him to take more time away from the four-film Civil War saga Horizon, which he is writing, directing, and starring in. Costner said he had altered his schedule on Horizon to accommodate the first half of Yellowstone season 5, but that as negotiations began, “they still hadn’t finished,” the first half of the season and there were “no scripts written” for the second half.
He told the court that at one point he had his representatives reach out to the network to, “have them pay me whatever number, we came up with a number,” he later said he believed the number was $12 million, “and they walked away.”
“I couldn’t help them any more,” Costner also testified. “We tried to negotiate, they offered me less money than previous seasons, there were issues with the creative…” While Costner did not go into detail over what creative issues he was referring to, it’s long been speculated that Costner and Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan were at odds on some aspects of the show’s creative direction.