Kevin Costner...right before the "Yellowstone" Comeback

Says here that "Molly's Game" came out in 2017.

Says here that the series "Yellowstone" started in 2018.

So..."before": Kevin Costner, a major star of the 80's and 90s...brought low by a series of flops and demotion to smaller movies and lower paychecks...but still "name" enough to have impact among the three leads in "Molly's Game."

VS

"After": Costner says yes to a cable/streaming series that vaults high into the ratings(however these things are rated) and him a big, big, BIG star again. (Think: John Travolta after Pulp Fiction.)

Kevin Costner had a divorce last year and I was surprised to see how rich he was. All those years as a "has been" (of sorts) making less than he made as superstar (roughly from The Untouchables and on through Bull Durham, Field of Dreams, Dances With Wolves, Robin Hood, JFK, and The Bodyguard) STILL left him a very wealthy man just in time for Yellowstone to make him richer and bankable again. (He has reverted to his "artiste" ways with a big multi-movie project, "Horizons.")

Anyway, here he is in "Molly's Game" just before everything broke his way again and I thought it then and I think it now: that movie REALLY benefitted from having his star power and his history of hits behind him. Yes, he played one of those cruel taskmaster sports fathers, but Costner ALWAYS had an "ornery quality" to him that helped make his career.

Some critics took "Molly's Game" (directed by top screenwriter Aaron Sorkin as well as being written by him) as too mawkish and melodramatic during the "big scene" at the end where father Costner confronted daughter Chastain about their real conflicts and her real potential, but I think audiences dug on the scene and what it said and what it meant. Sorkin is a great writer of argument and wit, but also knows when to go for the melodrama.

Anyway, when I saw Kevin Costner in "Molly's Game" in 2017 I thought: "Too bad he wrecked his career. He's still got star charisma...and his looks have gotten better with age."

The next year, he got his stardom back...but not necessarily in a project better than "Molly's Game."

PS. The string of hits from The Untouchables through The Bodyguard MADE Kevin Costner a superstar. The costly string of flops(or underperformers) Wyatt Earp, Waterworld and The Postman took the superstardom away.