The Yellowstone director reveals that Kevin Costner will play an ‘integral’ role in the ending despite his exit

On By Littum

Yellowstone director Christina Voros has shed light on how the show plans to end, despite its star Kevin Costner’s unexpected, premature exit earlier this year.

Ahead of the hit western’s long-awaited return this month, Voros talked about how Costner’s character, John Dutton, will remain an “essential component” for the show’s final episode.

“John Dutton is still central,” she shared The Hollywood Reporter. “His presence is integral. I think to say more than that would potentially compromise all the work that went into editing the scripts!

“But I think the reason people wonder, ‘Is he, right? Where is he, where isn’t he?’ is because he is the patriarch and his presence is an essential component of the story.”

Costner, who led Yellowstone when the Montana landowner and four-season Dutton family patriarch announced he was leaving the hit series in June.

“I just realized I won’t be able to continue season 5b or into the future,” he said on an Instagram video. “It was something that really changed me. I loved it and I know you loved it. I just wanted to tell you that I’m not going back.”

“John Dutton is still central,” ‘Yellowstone’ director Christina Voros said of Kevin Costner’s character (Paramount)

Early reports suggested that his exit was due to an argument with the show’s creator, Taylor Sheridan, over scheduling conflicts allegedly caused by the actor’s desire to shoot his western passion project. Horizon – An American Saga.

However, Costner later disputed these claims, saying that they had been prepared and ready to shoot whenever he was required, but production kept getting pushed back.

“I did it for five years and I wanted to work more than once a year,” he said in a June episode Show today. “We lost a whole year at one point and I thought, it can’t happen again.”

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He added that he “would love to come back” to Yellowstonealbeit “under the right circumstances.”

Yellowstone returns with the second part of its fifth and final season on November 10 on Paramount+ at 8 PM ET/PT.

While the series is coming to an end, Sheridan isn’t done expanding the world Yellowstone. He actually announced that recently Michelle Pfeiffer will lead the upcoming Yellowstone sequel series Madison.

The new series will follow a family of New Yorkers who move to the Madison River valley in central Montana. It is set to deal with themes of grief and human connection.