The head-scratcher of the week definitely comes from Kevin Costner, who took to Instagram on Thursday to “announce” that he would not be returning for the final tranche of Yellowstone episodes. Huh? This despite me and others reporting for over a year that creator Taylor Sheridan was writing Costner out of Season 5B due to his insane demands and conflicts with filming the various installments of Horizon: An American Saga. 

Nothing has changed in months. Paramount made several offers for Costner to return, including on a shortened production window and for the same pay that put him in the very top tier of TV actors. But Costner kept making odd demands, like wanting an extremely truncated schedule and script approval over the final episodes. Remember, Costner has a very bizarre “moral death” clause in his contract that prevents John Dutton from being killed off in a dishonorable manner. (My suggestion is to load his obscured dead body onto a horse and ride it off into the “horizon,” but that’s a bit on the nose, even for Taylor Sheridan.) 

Anyway, script approval was never happening, especially considering how frosty the Costner-Sheridan relationship had become. Despite Costner’s team making several overtures during last summer’s strikes, the two sides haven’t talked in months. Sheridan is said to be happy with the Costner-free creative work-around to finish Yellowstone and transition to the planned sequel series. And, of course, Paramount’s Chris McCarthy is going to back the creator whose massive success got him elevated to co-C.E.O. of the company over the star of one show who would rather be elsewhere. No-brainer.  

So why did Costner go public now with the proclamation? After all, on the seemingly endless Horizon press tour, he’d been suggesting that he wants to return to Yellowstone under “the right circumstances.” But production on Season 5B is already underway in Montana without him, and on Thursday, hours before Costner’s Instagram post, Paramount announced a November 10 premiere date in a press release that conspicuously did not mention him. That led to a new round of “Will Costner Return?” headlines and, presumably, a stark realization for a star that has been coddled for decades that Sheridan and Paramount were not, in fact, bluffing.

There’s a promo angle, too: With Paramount’s Yellowstone announcements (intentionally?) muddying the Horizon promotion, Costner’s fans might have assumed he would appear in both, or that the two projects are related. So Costner seems to have felt the need to clarify, ending his IG missive with a very Tom Cruise-esque, “See you at the movies,” telegraphing to fans that if they want to watch him looking amazing in a cowboy hat, they can’t just wait around for Yellowstone—they need to pay to see him in Horizon now, and preferably again in August in Horizon: An American Saga—Chapter 2.

Speaking of Horizon, the numbers aren’t looking great as the $100 million-plus, three-hour Chapter 1 hits multiplexes this weekend. NRG tracking has it at $10 million domestic for the weekend—down from a troubling $12 million a couple weeks ago—despite a marketing and P.R. blitz. The Quorum has it a little higher, in the $10 million to $13 million range, which is up a bit after weeks of declining numbers. Either opening gross would be poor for a film with that budget.  

Of course, heartland audiences often don’t track (see: Sound of Freedom last summer), which Costner is betting on. He’s been hitting the Middle America media tour hard: local TV in markets where Yellowstone over-indexes, daytime TV, a People cover, an awkward appearance at a Walmart that doubled as a plug for his coffee brand. I gotta say: The dude looks great for 69, and he’s selling the crap out of this thing—a total movie star, as much as that even matters anymore.

Still, Warners has subdued expectations, especially after the film landed at Cannes with a thud. It didn’t help that Costner basically begged billionaires to help bankroll the final films, after his global roadshow apparently delivered disappointing returns. Remember, Costner and his mysterious, likely Middle Eastern backers paid for these first two movies, with Costner telling GQ he’s spending $38 million of his own money. Warners’ Toby Emmerich agreed to release only the first two Horizons back in April 2022 for a distribution fee, right as Costner’s longtime friend and Taylor Swift concert buddy David Zaslav became C.E.O. of Warner Bros. Discovery. The two sides then agreed on a mid-tier marketing plan, which Costner is also financing. Overseas, where Westerns typically perform worse than in the U.S., distribution is territory-by-territory. Reviews can help, but Horizon is at a splattery 47 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Zero Imax theaters have been booked.

So, yeah, this could end up one of the bigger indie film financial disasters in recent years. It’s actually a gift of sorts for Warners that the media narrative on the movie is so bad. If it comes in around the high teens or even $20 million this weekend, Horizon will have “overperformed,” even though it still will likely not come close to profitability in theaters. And once the numbers arrive and we all start doing the math on what Costner and his financiers might lose on this expensive passion project… Remember, there’s a sequel coming in six weeks, a third Horizon currently shooting, and—for the love of God and Taylor Sheridan—another one planned after that.