Kevin Costner Had a Different Ending in Mind for <em>Yellowstone</em>

Kevin Costner can’t escape the Old West. Try as he might to leave Yellowstone behind and seek financing for his four-part Horizon film series, Costner's one-man crusade to tell the story of the West, his way, may have finally met its end.

“Horizon feels like thirty-five years ago,” he joked in a new interview with Entertainment Tonight. The outlet asked him how he felt about the thirty-fifth anniversary of Dances with Wolves, but his mind is still set on Horizon. “[Part] Two is done, and I hope to make [Parts] Three and Four," he said.

That day may never arrive for Costner. In the process of making Horizon, he left behind one of his most popular roles of all time: John Dutton. Costner reportedly exited the popular Paramount series due to a dispute over contracts and film scheduling. Even though Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan killed his character off-screen and derailed the entire fifth season in his absence, Costner still has kind words for the series that won him his third Golden Globe award.

“It’s modern-day ranching,” Costner explained. “Yellowstone was able to capture that so beautifully. I mean, it’s a bit of a soap opera. We should all be in prison.”

Well, prison isn’t in the cards for the Dutton family. Instead, Sheridan is cooking up multiple spin-offs to continue the story of the Yellowstone ranching family. As always, I’m sure Paramount would love to have Costner back for some flashbacks.

“I loved the show,” Costner told People last summer. “I liked the people on the show. I liked what it was about. I love that world…I’ve always felt that…it might be an interesting moment to come back and finish the mythology of this modern-day family. And if that happens, I would step into it if I agreed with how it was being done."