Paramount Network exec is “very confident” that Kevin Costner won’t leave Yellowstone

Back in February, a shockwave ripped through the world as reports came out that Kevin Costner was supposedly pushing back against the time commitment involved with filming Yellowstone. According to rumors, Costner had talked the producers down to only 50 days of shooting for the second half of the hit show’s fifth season, but then he apparently only wanted to film for one week. Things were so bad—supposedly—that plans were being put into place for the original Yellowstone series to end and be replaced with a new show starring Matthew McConaughey (which could also kill the second bird of cleaning up the streaming rights for the YellowsA statement tone franchise).

But no! Maybe! Paramount sort of denied it at the time, saying that everyone involved wants Costner to keep being a “big part of Yellowstone,” and now Keith Cox, Paramount Network’s president of development and production, has sort of denied it further. Speaking at a PaleyFest panel (one that Costner and series creator Taylor Sheridan dropped out of hours before it started), Cox said that everyone involved is “very confident” that Costner is going to continue with Yellowstone. (That comes from The Hollywood Reporter.)

That’s definitely not a “no, he’s not leaving,” and if anything it seems like an acknowledgement there are issues behind the scenes with Costner wanting to dramatically scale back his involvement in the show, but perhaps those issues really are going to work out in a way that keeps Costner on the show. Maybe he only appears in each episode for a couple of minutes? Maybe he’s in one episode every season, and every other time the characters talk to him offscreen so Costner doesn’t really have to be there? Or they just pay him more or put big gaps in the shooting schedule for everyone to accommodate Costner. All that matters is that Yellowstone lives on!