A new report says that the hit show Yellowstone on the Paramount Network may be coming to an end soon.
On Monday, sources told the New York Post that the show would end after the second half of its fifth season.
DailyMail.com has tried to get in touch with people from Paramount.
The problem seems to be a disagreement between the show’s star, Kevin Costner, who reportedly wants to cut back a lot on his work for the fifth season so he can focus on other projects, and its creator and showrunner, Taylor Sheridan, who, according to sources, has grown a big ego since becoming a big player in the film and TV industry.
It’s the same as with any show runner and big star — there’s respect, but there’s friction,
a source described as ‘well-placed’ within the production said.
Uncertainty about the show is made worse by the fact that filming for the second half of the most recent season hasn’t started yet. This could be because the Writers Guild of America is about to go on strike because of pay issues.
Another “highly placed Hollywood source” said that the show’s creator is partly to blame for the “friction” on set.
Taylor is the star of his show. He’s the most important person on all of his shows,
they said.
The first half of the fifth season ended in January, but there hasn’t even been a date set for the second half to start filming yet. This means that it could be affected by the likely writers’ strike.
However, the production source said:
We’re hoping it will be worked out. It’s too big a show for things not to be worked out.
Hopefully Kevin will return for the remaining episodes, if everyone works together, but it looks like Yellowstone will end after this season.
But a third person who knows Sheridan seemed to say that the writer and director was being secretive about the negotiations, making it hard to know what was really going on behind the scenes.
Only Taylor truly knows what what is going on,
they said mysteriously.
The source in Hollywood said that Sheridan’s “ego” has been fed by the fact that he has become well-known in the industry relatively late in life.
Taylor spent years not being truly appreciated in Hollywood, and now that he’s the top of the heap, there’s definitely some ego to all of this,
they said.
Deadline said in February that Costner only wanted to film the second half of season five for a week. This was after he had already cut down on the first half.
The actor wanted to focus his attention on his upcoming Western movie series, Horizon.
But after the report, Costner’s lawyer, Marty Singer, said that the claim that his client would only shoot for a week was an “absolute lie” to Puck News.
As everyone who knows anything about Kevin is well aware, he is incredibly passionate about the show and has always gone way above and beyond to ensure its success,
he said at the time.
And the Hollywood source seemed to confirm that Costner was ready to go back to work. However, Sheridan’s lack of preparation reportedly got in the way.
They said Costner was ready to shoot the second half of the season last year or in January of this year, but there were no finished scripts to shoot at the time.
Kevin’s been extremely cooperative with working with Taylor and his production company, 101 Studios. They were supposed to shoot the second chapter of Season five late last year, but they just didn’t have the scripts,
the Hollywood source claimed.
They also said that Sheridan was “overworked” and “nothing was ready,” even though Costner “made himself available.”
Kevin had already committed to making his other movies. He had given the producers his schedule,
they said, explaining:
In the entertainment industry, you can’t keep yourself in a holding pattern and available while the producers are not getting their act together with the scripts. There was nothing to shoot.
Sheridan’s reach has grown a lot in the last few years. He wrote and directed all of Yellowstone’s first season, but in later seasons he stepped back and let other people take over, though he still wrote or co-wrote almost every script.
But he has added a few more shows to his list, and he has done a lot of creative work on all of them.
Sheridan’s show, Mayor of Kingstown, which starred Jeremy Renner, started airing in 2021. He directed two episodes and wrote the whole first season before cutting back on his workload for the second season.
Then he directed the pilot and wrote every episode of his prequel series to Yellowstone, 1883, and he also wrote every episode of the prequel series that came after it, 1923.
Sheridan created and wrote the pilot for the Sylvester Stallone show Tulsa King in 2022. He also created and is the showrunner for the upcoming spy show Lioness, which stars Nicole Kidman and Zoe Saldana.
Sheridan’s next show is Western Bass Reeves, which stars David Oyelowo and Dennis Quaid. He is going to direct the pilot for this show.
It looks like Paramount is taking a chance on Costner. Even though Paramount Network President Keith Cox said he was “very confident” that Costner would stay with the show, the network is moving forward with a Yellowstone spinoff starring Matthew McConaughey. This show will go on whether or not Yellowstone continues.
But it could be good for Paramount’s finances for Yellowstone to end. The show airs live on the Paramount Network, but because of a licensing deal, it can also be watched on the Peacock service from NBC.
Peacock has the streaming rights to Yellowstone for four years after the last episode airs.
This means that the longer the show goes on, the longer it can keep its exclusivity.
But the Yellowstone spinoffs that came after that and other Sheridan shows are shown on the Paramount+ streamer.
Paramount doesn’t want Yellowstone on the air for more than another year [and competing with their shows]. They’d prefer to have a new [Sheridan] show with Paramount+,
the Hollywood source explained.
They added:
It’s a great show for Kevin. It pays him a lot of money and it helped reinvigorate him.
Several sources said that the potential writers’ strike could be a good thing because it could give Sheridan and Costner more time to keep working on a compromise to keep Yellowstone going.
