During a recent interview with Variety, executive producer Christina Alexandra Voros called the finale “an end of an era.”
“I think this last batch of episodes leads us to the end of an era,” said Voros. “It’s impossible to talk about it in any detail without tipping my hat towards things to come. But I think Taylor [Sheridan] has managed to — and I’m really not sure how he’s done it — I think it’s sort of masterful, bring the ending to something that feels both shocking and fated at the same time. You need to get to the end of the story to fully understand everything that has come before.”
Why is Kevin Costner leaving Yellowstone?
In February 2023, Deadline reported that the dispute between Costner and The Paramount Network concerned his participation in season 5’s filming schedule. It noted that Costner’s priority was Horizon, a new multipart Western film that is his current passion project. According to the report, Costner’s commitments to those films led him to shoot only 50 days for the first half of Yellowstone season 5. But Costner “only wanted to spend a week shooting” for the remaining episodes of the season. Subsequently, Paramount Network made plans to end the series and push toward a sequel show.
Sheridan addressed the issue in a June 2023 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, where he said: “My last conversation with Kevin was that he had this passion project he wanted to direct. He and the network argued about when he could be done with Yellowstone. I said, ‘We can certainly work a schedule toward [his preferred exit date],’ which we did.”
“My opinion of Kevin as an actor hasn’t altered,” added Sheridan. “I’ve never had an issue with Kevin that he and I couldn’t work out on the phone. But 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 took a lot of this on the chin, and I don’t know that anyone deserves it … I’m disappointed. It truncates the closure of his character. It doesn’t alter it, but it truncates it.”