In 2018, Kevin Costner joined Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone, taking the leading role of John Dutton, a tough rancher fighting for his land. After Sheridan’s Hollywood career soared through films like Sicario, Hell or High Water and Wind River, his various Western shows dominated TV ratings. While his writing and direction ensured the first series would be a hit, Costner’s inclusion went a long way in attracting audiences, particularly those who might not be Western fans. After a stellar, five-year creative run between the pair, with Costner even producing some of the series, their partnership came to an untimely, disappointing end after the fifth season. As is so often the story with sudden TV exits, this has been chalked up to a divide between the two over the creative direction of the series.

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Kevin Costner Tried To Be The Face Of Westerns
The Star Attempted To Take Over From Clint Eastwood
Following Clint Eastwood’s debut as the Man With No Name in Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars, his star soared. By the time the ’70s were in full swing, Eastwood had firmly supplanted John Wayne as the face of the Western genre, through movies like High Plains Drifter, Two Mules For Sister Sara and The Outlaw Josey Wales. However, by the late ’80s, his own association with the genre had waned, just as Wayne’s had the decade prior.

Making only one Western during the decade, he instead rebranded as a drama and thriller star and director, allowing a new generation to take over in the Wild West. The same year Eastwood made his supernatural Western Pale Rider, Kevin Costner burst onto the scene in the role of Jake in Silverado. As the 1990s kicked off, Eastwood made his last true Western in Unforgiven, just as Costner became a Hollywood heartthrob, thanks to movies like The Bodyguard and The Untouchables.

Kevin Costner and Bill Paxton standing next to each other in a promo for Hatfields and McCoys.
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Where Clint Eastwood successfully took over the Western genre, Costner’s success has been a lot more mixed. While Dances With Wolves was a juggernaut at the box office, Horizon and Wyatt Earp were failures, with Open Range enjoying more moderate success. In fairness to Costner, his career took off just as the genre declined, with big sci-fi and adventure franchise films supplanting them as America’s favorite blockbusters. However, he enjoyed far more success through his TV ventures than he did with his Western films, notably his time on Yellowstone. Incidentally, the one time he did work alongside Eastwood for A Perfect World, he even changed details of the story there too, ensuring the Unforgiven star would act alongside him.

How Creative Differences Caused A Tombstone Rift
Costner Wanted A Different Kind Of Western
While Western fans may find it hard to picture any Tombstone cast that doesn’t include the likes of Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer, there was a time when Kevin Costner was in talks to feature in the film. However, because of creative differences with screenwriter Kevin Jarre, he pulled out before anything official could begin. Instead, he took on Lawrence Kasdan’s script for Wyatt Earp, having collaborated with the writer-director on 1985’s Silverado.

Where Cosmatos’ film shone a spotlight on the events surrounding the Gunfight at the OK Corral, Costner wanted a more epic, comprehensive look at the lawman’s life. This resulted in a movie that was over three-hours exploring his journey from childhood to older age in what co-star Michael Madsen dubbed “a giant close-up of Kevin for three fucking hours.” Likewise, Roger Ebert compared the film to “Tombstone pumped full of hot air.”

Composite image The Quick and the Dead, Death Rides a Horse, Seraphim Falls
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Wyatt Earp
Release DateJune 24, 1994

DirectorLawrence Kasdan

Costner Repeated His Tombstone Mistake
Ego Led Costner To Leave A Hit For A Flop

Yellowstone IMDB Rating Streaming
2019-2024 8.6/10 Peacock
During filming of Yellowstone’s fifth and final season, which was broken down into two halves, Costner announced his departure from the series. Although his scheduling conflict with the Horizon films was offered as the main reason, it soon became known that his creative differences with Sheridan were a factor too. With reports that he wanted the series to focus more on John Dutton, clashing with Sheridan’s own plans for the series, this likely drove a wedge between them.

As Costner was spending more time on Horizon, further forcing show runners to plan around him, Sheridan himself insisted on his vision for Dutton as the prevailing one. In leaving, neither man got what he wanted as Coster’s character was killed off, and Sheridan’s story practically sabotaged. As great as Costner can be on the creative side, with Dances With Wolves a testament to this, it’s hard to deny that many of his best projects saw him with little creative control.

Tombstone in the middle with Silverado and Young Guns on the sides
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At the height of his career, he played the all-American hero cast in a story written and directed by others, whether that was Field of Dreams, The Untouchables or The Bodyguard, all the films that built his leading-man status. It wasn’t always a bad call for him to take charge of his films and characters, but any good star knows when to take a step back and trust other creators.

Yellowstone didn’t quite live and die by Costner, but it’s hard to deny just how far his star power went in bringing in viewers. While audiences might have gotten more invested in the wider story over his five-year tenure on the series, he was the de facto figurehead of the Yellowstone universe. As the fifth season wound down towards its finale, show runners were forced to change the story around his exit, beginning with the revelation that John Dutton had been found dead. Though the series may be over, the character’s death effectively rules out the actor’s return to Sheridan’s franchise.

Costner’s Control Can Be A Blessing And A Curse
Kevin Costner as The Postman from the movie The Postman (1997)
Property of Warner Bros.
Since leaving Yellowstone, Costner has produced a Western documentary series, Kevin Costner’s The West.
Yellowstone John Dutton
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Costner’s reasons for leaving both Tombstone and Yellowstone appear to be largely the same, insisting on a greater focus on his characters. The actor-director should be commended as one of the last champions of the Western genre, even if that doesn’t always lead to box office success. However, in working alongside another Western master in Taylor Sheridan, Costner should have had more faith in his partner’s abilities, and his exit only repeated his worst mistake of the ’90s.

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