Costner's John Dutton was reportedly not included in the final scripts for the show after tension between the actor and show creator.
Will John Dutton be back to wrap up his time on Yellowstone? As fans of the Paramount series await the highly anticipated conclusion to the show with part 2 of season 5 dropping in November 2024, the fate of Kevin Costner's beloved Montana rancher remains unknown.
Costner, 69, has reportedly been telling people he's planning to return for at least a cameo in the second half of season 5 and possibly more, according to Puck News.
But the site also claims that there are currently no discussions for Costner to return.
As was previously reported, Yellowstone creator and writer Taylor Sheridan has written the final episodes of the hit series without including Costner's John Dutton in the storylines amid ongoing tension between the two.
"Even if Costner significantly lowers his financial and time commitment demands, Sheridan may not want to bother reopening his finished scripts to accommodate a send-off for John Dutton. But the Yellowstone fans would certainly love it, which Costner knows and hopes to leverage, as he always does," the site reports.
Puck News also reports that Yellowstone stars Cole Hauser and Kelly Reilly are holding out for $1 million per episode pay days, and that Sheridan still wants Matthew McConaughey and Michelle Pfeiffer to co-star in a spinoff series alongside Hauser, Reilly and Luke Grimes, even though McConaughey and Pfeiffer are not on board yet.
ET has reached out to Paramount for comment on the reports.
Josh Lucas, who plays a younger version of Dutton, previously told ET that he hopes to be back for the final episodes.
"I texted Taylor Sheridan a couple months ago, and his response was, 'Absolutely, we're going to finish this with 10 episodes or so,'" Lucas told ET at the premiere of his new Apple TV+ series, Palm Royale, earlier this month. "I know as much as you do, but I think we got 10 episodes to kind of wrap it up and I can't wait to go do it."
In September, during a child support hearing amid his divorce proceedings, Costner addressed the circumstances of his exit from the show.
At the time, he reportedly said on the stand that he changed his schedule to shoot the first part of Yellowstone's fifth season while working on his own movie project, Horizon: An American Saga. While he said he wanted to return for the sixth season, he "couldn’t help them any more."
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