Kevin Costner is making quite the pretty penny on Yellowstone. Matt Belloni, formerly of The Hollywood Reporter, reported in his Puck newsletter that Costner is making northward of one million per episode of Yellowstone. He even noted that the figure is a major increase from Costner’s sum in Season 1 and that the actor originally signed on when the show was going to be a miniseries.
When Costner initially signed on to Yellowstone, he was reportedly earning $500,000 per episode for Season 1. Along the way, and amid the show’s rising popularity, that figure has grown exponentially. He reportedly re-negotiated and earned $1.2 million per episode for Season 4. That figure is set to grow for Season 5 and beyond. Additionally, Costner will also get an overhead deal in exchange for negotiating his future seasons on the series.
Costner stars as John Dutton on Yellowstone, which premiered in 2018. Season 4 of the series wrapped up this past January. Yellowstone also stars Luke Grimes, Kelly Reilly, Wes Bentley, and Cole Hauser. The show has garnered so much acclaim that it’s even spawned a spinoff, 1883, which serves as a prequel to Yellowstone and follows the Dutton family’s first generation. 1883, which premiered in late 2021, stars real-life couple Faith Hill and Tim McGraw as the Dutton family’s matriarch and patriarch, Margaret and James Dutton.
Following Yellowstone’s 2018 premiere, Costner spoke with Deadline about what drew him to the series. He explained that when he first read the script, he saw that it would be shot on the Bitterroot Valley and that was “enough to catch my interest.” The actor added that he knows what he’s looking for when it comes to choosing a project to join, and Yellowstone had everything that he needed. Costner said that “it has to entertain, you have to be able to see yourself in it. Can people gather around this idea, then can your idea pivot off that? Yellowstone was a perfect marriage.” He went on to tease the show that fans know and love today by saying that it “is not some kind of fiction… While the American west is disappearing, the DNA of the characters has a level of unpredictablilty, of danger.”
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