Before Yellowstone's Taylor Sheridan, Kevin Costner Butted Heads With Kurt Russell

Kevin Costner's sudden exit from Taylor Sheridan's "Yellowstone" might have left fans reeling, but one of the reasons behind the split can be traced back to an ever-evolving Sheridan-verse rife with prequels and spin-offs. Of course, there are a ton of variables to consider regarding the situation, such as alleged scheduling conflicts with a Costner passion project or time-consuming production schedules and the lack of a workable script for the series' "season 5B." A clash of statements and perspectives prevents us from understanding what truly happened here, but this is not the first time Costner has butted heads with a coworker — as something incredibly unexpected happened on the set of "3000 Miles to Graceland," a 2001 action-comedy in which the actor starred alongside Kurt Russell.

The thing about "3000 Miles to Graceland" is that it is a heist film that wants to be ultra-violent and amusing all at once, but instead ends up being a mess. Costner and Russell play parole buddies/gang members involved in a high-stakes casino robbery in Las Vegas, where the group poses as Elvis impersonators during a convention. Needless to say, all hell breaks loose after the extracted $3.2 million creates a schism within the gang. While this sounds like a perfectly reasonable premise for a comedic action-thriller, "3000 Miles to Graceland" is baffling from start to finish, replete with huge CGI scorpions who battle it out in the desert (?) without any context in the film's opening.

To nobody's surprise, "3000 Miles to Graceland" was a complete critical and commercial failure upon its release. However, the real tussle occurred behind the scenes, where co-stars Costner and Russell competed to establish their respective edits for the film as the final cut, with the former emerging victorious. What exactly happened here?

Before we dive into this, it is worth mentioning that neither Costner nor Russell directed the film, as it was helmed and co-produced by Demian Lichtenstein. However, according to a report by ABC News published in 2000, a source revealed to Insider.com that the actors were provided with the opportunity to oversee their versions of the final cut, which were then shown to a test-preview audience to gauge their reactions. Costner's version was the clear winner, as it was "more pure action" as opposed to Russell's version, which was "more character-oriented." Per the same source, Lichtenstein (who, again, was the film's actual director) had no issues with this outcome. In the end, Costner's edit made it to print and was the version released in theaters (for better or worse).

This situation is significantly different than the "Yellowstone" one for obvious reasons. Moreover, there seems to be no bad blood between Russell and Costner, even though they competed for their respective edits. While neither Warner. Bros. nor the cast made any official statements about the incident, Costner's version fails to draw positive parallels to the influences that the film wears on its sleeve, including the pop-culture-heavy dialogue and exaggerated, gratuitous violence played for thrills. There are some intriguing stylistic flairs employed here and there, but the overarching tonal dissonance leads to a fragmented, disoriented version of a heist comedy.

Although it is impossible to discern whether Russell's cut was any better, the film might have benefited from a more concentrated focus on its characters, who are as quirky and out there as they can be, but are never allowed to be fleshed out in the final cut. Or perhaps, there was never a cut for "3000 Miles to Graceland" half as interesting as the tempting lull of a "what-if" conundrum.