TV mogul Taylor Sheridan recently addressed the controversial departure of Kevin Costner from the smash-hit series Yellowstone, and said that the split wasn’t as contentious as it was made out to be. Sheridan appeared on The Bill Simmons Podcast and revealed that Costner’s arc on Yellowstone was initially supposed to last three seasons, with the baton then being passed to the next generation of characters. But the studio didn’t want to mess with a hit show, and Costner stuck around for more than one additional season than he had expected to. Sheridan explained, “Finally, Kevin hit a point where he said, ‘I gotta do my own thing.’ But we originally conceived it together that it was three seasons, and then the baton is handed — because we had to tread water for a bit there, and I think it was pretty evident.” When Sheridan refers to Costner’s “own thing,” he probably means the sprawling Horizon saga.
Costner’s four-part series of theatrical Westerns, partially self-financed by the star, debuted its first installment in 2024. The second installment has been shelved after a premiere at the Venice International Film Festival, because the first part didn’t exactly break the bank. Warner Bros. had scheduled the second installment for an August 2024 release, but was pulled when the first part grossed just $38 million against a reported budget of $50 million. The situation was made worse when two separate lawsuits were filed against the production. Costner has filmed parts of the third installment, and is waiting to raise funds for the fourth. W.B. was also hoping for the first film to find an audience on PVOD and streaming, which would make the production of the subsequent installments financially feasible.
Collider Exclusive · Taylor Sheridan Universe Quiz Which Taylor Sheridan Show Do You Belong In? Yellowstone · Landman · Tulsa King · Mayor of Kingstown
Four worlds. All of them brutal, complicated, and built on power, loyalty, and the price of survival. Taylor Sheridan doesn’t write heroes — he writes people who do what they have to do and live with the cost. Ten questions will reveal which one of his worlds you were made for.
🤠Yellowstone
🛢️Landman
👑Tulsa King
⚖️Mayor of Kingstown
01
Where does your power come from? In Sheridan’s world, everyone has leverage. The question is what kind.
02
Who do you put first, no matter what? Loyalty in Sheridan’s universe is always absolute — and always costly.
03
Someone crosses a line. How do you respond? Every Sheridan protagonist has a line. What matters is what happens after it’s crossed.
04
Where do you feel most in your element? Sheridan’s worlds are as much about place as they are about people.
05
How do you feel about operating in the grey? Nobody in a Sheridan show has clean hands. The question is how they carry the dirt.
06
What are you actually fighting to hold onto? Every Sheridan character is fighting a war. The real question is what they’re defending.
07
How do you lead? Authority in Sheridan’s world is never given — it’s established, maintained, and constantly tested.
08
Someone new arrives and tries to change how things work. Your reaction? Every Sheridan show has an outsider disrupting an established order. Sometimes that outsider is you.
09
What has your position cost you? Nobody gets to where these characters are without paying for it. The bill is always personal.
10
When it’s over, what do you want people to say? Sheridan’s characters all know the ending is coming. The question is what they leave behind.
Sheridan Has Spoken You Belong In…
The show that claimed the most of your answers is the world you were built for. If two tied, both are shown — you’re complicated enough to straddle two Sheridan universes.
🤠 Yellowstone
🛢️ Landman
👑 Tulsa King
⚖️ Mayor of Kingstown
You are a Dutton — or you might as well be. You understand that some things are worth protecting at any cost, and that the modern world’s indifference to history, to land, to legacy, is not something you’re willing to accept quietly. You lead from the front, you carry your family’s weight without complaint, and when someone threatens what’s yours, you don’t escalate — you finish it. You’re not cruel. But you are absolute. In Yellowstone’s world, that combination of ferocity and loyalty doesn’t make you a villain. It makes you the only thing standing between everything that matters and everyone who wants to take it.
You thrive in the chaos of high-stakes negotiation, where the money is enormous, the margins are thin, and the wrong word in the wrong room can cost everyone everything. You’re a fixer — the person called when a situation is already on fire and needs someone with the nerve to walk into it. West Texas oil country rewards exactly what you are: sharp, adaptable, unsentimental, and absolutely clear-eyed about what people want and what they’ll do to get it. You’re not naive enough to think this world is fair. You’re smart enough to be the one deciding who it’s fair to.
You are a Dwight Manfredi — someone who has served their time, paid their dues, and arrived somewhere unexpected with nothing but their reputation and their wits. You adapt without losing yourself. You build loyalty through respect rather than fear, though you’re not above reminding people that the two aren’t mutually exclusive. Tulsa King is for people who are still standing when everyone assumed they’d be finished — who find, in an unfamiliar place, that they’re more capable than the world gave them credit for. You don’t need a throne. You build one, wherever you happen to land.
You carry the weight of a system that is broken by design, and you do it anyway — because someone has to, and because you’re the only one positioned to do it without the whole thing collapsing. Mike McLusky’s world is for people who are comfortable operating where there are no good options, only less catastrophic ones. You speak every language: law enforcement, criminal, political, human. That fluency makes you invaluable and it makes you a target. You’ve made your peace with both. Mayor of Kingstown belongs to people who understand that keeping the peace is not the same as being at peace — and who do the job regardless.
Mixed Reviews Are Getting in the Way of Kevin Costner’s Ambitions
However, even though Yellowstone remains a rage on Paramount+ years after its finale, Costner’s Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1 is still waiting to be discovered by the mainstream. According to FlixPatrol, the movie found a spot on the domestic Prime Video top 10 this week, indicating that there might be hope for it yet. The movie opened to mixed reviews and is now sitting at a 51% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, where the consensus reads, “Kevin Costner doesn’t lack for ambition as he sketches this frontier saga across the widest of canvases, but Horizon‘s first chapter proves too diffuse in scope for it to satisfy as a self-contained endeavor.” Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
