Kevin Costner of Yellowstone leads the way among the highest paid stars on television, earning $1.3 million per episode.

He plays the lead role and is an executive producer of the hit series Yellowstone.

And now Kevin Costner is once again reaping the rewards of becoming the highest paid actor per episode on the small screen.

The 67-year-old Hollywood veteran is earning $1.3 million per episode of the western show’s fifth season, Variety reported Wednesday.

Costner, who won two Academy Awards for 1990s Dances with Wolves, is filming in Yellowstone as patriarch John Dutton, whose family has run a Montana ranch for six generations.

Each season of the drama outsold the previous season in terms of four times the number of viewers of the fourth season than the one that tuned into the first episode.

And along with his success, Costner, whose first-season starting salary was $500,000 per episode, managed to renegotiate his contract every step of the way to $1.2 million per episode in season four, according to ScreenRant.

Now he is getting an extra $100,000 per episode to star in new episodes of the drama.

Yellowstone, which debuted on the cable channel Paramount Network in 2018, is the flagship product of the newly launched Paramount+ streaming service.

It also spawned two prequels: 1883, starring Faith Hill and Tim McGraw, which premiered in December 2021, and the upcoming 1923, which, according to Variety, will net its stars Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren $1 million each. dollars per episode each.

Filmed and written by Taylor Sheridan, Yellowstone was an instant hit with viewers, despite being dubbed “the anti-woke”.

However, it failed to achieve the same success in the Hollywood industry as it was largely neglected at award ceremonies despite being watched by over 10 million viewers.

Once again, the show missed out on the Best Drama category when the Emmy Award nominations were announced earlier this month.

Costner, who won two Academy Awards for 1990s Dances with Wolves, was also rejected in the Best Actor category.

It was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award this year but did not win the top prize.

Hit show: Costner, 67, was earning $500,000 per episode when the western premiered in 2018 and has since negotiated a pay rise for each season thanks to blockbuster viewership.

Set in the American West, Yellowstone received its fair share of criticism, especially when it first aired.

Tim Goodman of The Hollywood Reporter called the show a “testosterone celebration of courage” which is completely untrue.

“Yellowstone tries to be so expansive and soapy that it has almost no realism,” Goodman wrote.

Shortly before the third season finale, Vulture’s Katherine VanArendonk wrote that Yellowstone is “the whitest male American show on television.”

She wrote that the show’s main focus is on portraying the idea that the townspeople are “boobs who don’t appreciate the good things: dirt”. Cows. empty horizons. Silence. These people are less sweaty, less calloused, less worthy.”

“It’s a supremely masculine, American, whitewashed ideal of how Yellowstone is committed to making the world work.”

She added that John Dutton served as a reflection of an America where land-owning white men were desperate to keep on the old path amidst a changing nation threatening to leave them behind.

Politically Incorrect: Yellowstone, which airs on Paramount+, has been called “anti-awakened” because of its focus on the white rural American landowner.

No Gongs: Directed and mostly written by Taylor Sheridan, the series was mostly rejected at the Hollywood awards despite being watched by over 10 million viewers.

In the money: Another actor who shares the title of the highest paid on television is Mahershala Ali, 48, who also receives $1.3 million per episode for the upcoming Disney+ and Hulu miniseries The Story.

Another actor who shares the title of highest paid on television is Mahershala Ali, 48.

According to Variety, he’s also making $1.3 million for an episode of the Disney+ and Hulu miniseries “Story,” which is currently filming.

Like Costner, Ali is a two-time Oscar winner, best known for the 2016 film Moonlight directed by Barry Jenkins. He won Best Supporting Actor again at the 2019 Academy Awards for Green Book 2018.

Variety reports that several stars are receiving a $1 million per episode fee to helm TV projects, including Sylvester Stallone for Tulsa King, Michael Keaton for Doggy, Will Ferrell and Paul Rudd for Dark Next Door and Jason Sudeikis for Ted Lasso.

Back in 2002, the cast of the NBC blockbuster sitcom Friends made Hollywood history when they agreed to a $1 million per episode deal to return for seasons 9 and 10.

It is unknown when the show debuted in 1994, Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, David Schwimmer, Matthew Perry and Matt Le Blanc decided to negotiate a pay raise as a team rather than individually.

Since Friends became part of NBC’s Thursday Night Must-See and was a worldwide success, the approach paid off for the six stars.

It was a tactic repeated by the main cast of The Big Bang Theory when they negotiated an increase in their final 12th season on CBS.

The five main actors – Jim Parsons, Kaley Cuoco, Johnny Galecki, Kunal Nayer and Simon Helberg – received $1 million for each episode of the final shows.