Until now, Kevin Costner had not revealed his reasons for leaving the series that gave him his biggest hit in years. It was known that he’d meant to commence production on a new multi-film project called “Horizon: An American Saga,” which could be a conflict. “Yellowstone” shoots almost exclusively across ranches and reservations in Utah and Montana, too, so that comes as a personal strain to cast and crew. Costner had also vocally disagreed with certain directions Sheridan had begun steering the series in.
Sheridan himself broke the silence to The Hollywood Reporter in June, saying that, “My last conversation with Kevin was that he had this passion project he wanted to direct. He and the network were arguing about when he could be done with Yellowstone. I said, ‘We can certainly work a schedule toward [his preferred exit date],’ which we did.” But the THR profile also reported that Costner got tired of “waiting on scripts,” with one unnamed source stating, “Kevin’s been unfairly portrayed in this thing. How can you schedule something when there are no scripts? [Sheridan’s] doing eight other shows.”
Reporting from inside Costner’s ongoing divorce proceedings from wife Christine Baumgartner, the Daily Mail has now supplied us with Costner’s first comments on his acrimonious separation from Sheridan and “Yellowstone.”