‘Yellowstone’ reveals fate of Kevin Costner’s John Dutton after actor’s exit
Paramount Network
Yellowstone wasted no time revealing the fate of Kevin Costner‘s character, John Dutton, as season 5 continued Sunday night.
During the premiere episode for the back half of the show’s fifth season — the first new episode in nearly two years — it was confirmed early on that Costner’s John Dutton, the central patriarch figure of the show, was dead.
How did John die? A gun was found next to his blood-splattered body at his Montana ranch. While initially believed to have been a suicide, it was later revealed via a flashback that John was murdered.
Turns out Sarah Atwood (Dawn Olivieri) orchestrated a hit on John and for it to be staged as a suicide, a plan she and Jamie Dutton (Wes Bentley) had previously cooked up.
Jamie — who had been going hard against his father in the first half of season 5 — was tearful about John’s death before Sarah told him it was her doing, and he seemed shocked that she’d gone through with it.
John’s death and how it happened have drawn a line in the sand between Jamie and his siblings, Kayce Dutton (Luke Grimes) and Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly), who have their sights set on him moving forward.
Following some behind-the-scenes drama on the series, Costner revealed in a social media post in June that he wouldn’t be returning to Yellowstone for “season 5B or into the future.”
“It was something that really changed me. I loved it and I know you loved it,” Costner said of the show. “I just want to let you know that I won’t be returning. I love the relationship we’ve been able to develop, and I’ll see you at the movies.”
L-R: Bruce Springsteen, John Landau/Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Bruce Springsteen’s manager Jon Landau sounds excited about the casting of Jeremy Allen White to play The Boss in the upcoming movie Deliver Me From Nowhere.
“Oh my god, he’s just perfect. The casting is great,” Landau tells The Hollywood Reporter, noting that director Scott Cooper told him, “We get the right cast, and we’ll tell this story right.” Landau added that “he got the right cast.”
As for how he feels about Succession star Jeremy Strong playing him on the big screen, Landau says, “I died and went to heaven.”
Landau calls Strong “a great guy,” sharing, “We’ve had the chance to know each other, and I’m just dying to see what he does and what I learn from it.”
As for the whole project, Landau says he and Springsteen aren’t directly involved, but adds that they’re “very pleased at the way they’re going about it, it’s going to be beautiful.”
Deliver Me From Nowhere follows Springsteen’s efforts to make his 1982 solo album Nebraska. The film is based on Warren Zanes‘ book Deliver Me from Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska.
Back in June, Sir Ian McKellen seemed to downplay a fall off a London stage during a performance of the Shakespeare adaptation Player Kings. A statement at the time said he was in good spirits and would make a speedy recovery. But now, several months later, McKellen reveals the whole thing was pretty scary.
“Apparently, I’m told by the company manager who’s holding my head as I lay on the floor, I said to her, ‘I’ve broken my neck. I’m dying,'” McKellen told ABC Audio in an interview from his home in London. “Now, I don’t remember saying that, but I must have felt it.”
He says he’s fine now, after fracturing his wrist and hurting his back, crediting the fat suit he was wearing in order to play rotund Knight John Falstaff with protecting his ribs and hips in the fall. And while physically he’s almost completely back to normal, the mental effects linger.
“I’m left with some disappointment,” McKellen confesses. “I’m ashamed that I didn’t complete — you know, my pride was bruised. How could this happen to me?” he asks with a chuckle. “And I suspect that although physically I’m healing, I wonder whether deep down there’s something mental or emotional that was jolted that needs to be attended to. And I’m attending to it by not working at the moment and resting.”
McKellen appears to be in a reflective mood as he discusses the fall, and his new film The Critic, in which he plays a prominent 1930s London theater critic named Jimmy Erskine, a once feared and respected tastemaker trying to recapture his glory days. Reviews, McKellen reveals, are a necessary evil for actors.
“We are seeking for approval. And we’re probably rather pathetic people who need that approval. We’re not confident enough of ourselves. So if you get a good review — oh, it’s an added pleasure. And if you get a bad review, it can be very hurtful,” McKellen admits.
And although he hasn’t been on the receiving end of a lot of bad reviews, the ones he has had are seared in his brain. Take for instance his turn in a Bernard Shaw revival in London’s West End when he was much younger. He starred in the play alongside a pre-Dame Judi Dench and recalls how he overheard a few fellow actors discussing his performance one night at a restaurant.
“One of them was going on and on and on about how dreadful I’d been. And I was typical of these modern young actors, using my voice in the wrong way and drawing attention to myself. And he just simply hadn’t enjoyed it.” McKellen says he laughed off the criticism, but the next night onstage it crept into his consciousness. “And as I looked into the audience talking away, I suddenly thought, ‘My God, every single person in this audience agrees with that actor that I heard last night. They all think I’m rubbish. I shouldn’t be here.’” He says he froze, forgot his lines and Dench had to rescue him.
Still, he swears if there’s a bad review out there, he’s going to read it. “I like to know. If people haven’t enjoyed the film of Cats I’d like to know about it.” 2019’s film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Broadway musical Cats was savaged by critics, probably the worst-reviewed film McKellen has ever been in. McKellen didn’t get the blame, though. His portrayal of Gus the Theater Cat was mostly praised. And he may be returning to a role that garnered him some of the most praise of his film career: the mighty wizard Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings movies.
“There are going to be a couple of more films, I think, with some of the same characters in it. And I’ve been asked to stand by,” McKellen says. “But there’s no script that I read, and no date. All I can say, as far as I’m concerned, they better be quick.”
Quick, because at 85 years old, McKellen isn’t sure how much time he has left. “I’m rather living a year at a time, rather than two or three years at a time,” he says.
Gandalf is a part of his legacy, so if he can, he’s going to go to New Zealand and put on the robes. Legacy is a theme in The Critic, as well. In his downtime, legacy and what’s next are things McKellen has been thinking about a lot. He remembers going to visit a friend in the hospital, a friend who was dying, and asking him what he was thinking about as his life neared the end.
“And he said, ‘I don’t want to miss anything.’ And that’s rather my view,” McKellen says wistfully. He wants to know what’s going to happen. “How is AI going to really take over? I mean, what is life going to be like? When is the world going to settle down? Is the world going to survive? I won’t know. I won’t know. And I suppose I won’t care because I won’t exist.”
Prime Video has announced that the pilot of a spin-off from its hit Reacher is going to become its own series.
The Untitled Neagley Project will star Reacher‘s Maria Sten as Frances Neagley, a former member of Jack Reacher’s 110 Special Investigators unit turned private investigator in Chicago.
“When she learns that a beloved friend from her past has been killed in a suspicious accident, she becomes hell-bent on justice,” Prime Video teases. “Using everything she’s learned from Jack Reacher and her time as a member of the [110th], Neagley puts herself on a dangerous path to uncover a menacing evil.”
The series will be executive produced by Reacher vet Nick Santora and his fellow Law & Order alum Nicholas Wootton.
“Lee Child created an immensely rich character with Neagley, and Maria Sten brought her to life in such a vivid, authentic way in Reacher,” said Santora and Wootton. “Amazon, Skydance Television, and CBS Studios have been tremendous partners from the start, and we are excited to explore Neagley’s story further and dive into what makes her so unique.”
For her part, Sten said, “I’m beyond thrilled to further explore the world of Neagley and her somewhat mysterious background. She’s such a wonderful character to play and I’m very excited for everyone to get to know her a little better.”
Meanwhile, production of the third season of Alan Ritchson-led Reacher wrapped in July, and will debut on Prime Video in 2025.
