Published Jul 4, 2026, 7:45 PM EDT
In over three years at Collider, senior author Jake has now penned over 3000 articles covering a wide range of TV and film for the resources, lists, utilities, news, and interview teams. Alongside interviewing stars such as Selin Hizli, Rose Ayling-Ellis, Harlan Coben, and Chelsea Peretti, Jake was lucky enough to visit the set of Aardman and Netflix’s Wallace and Gromit: A Vengeance Most Fowl in 2024, getting the chance to chat with four-time Academy Award winner Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham. Jake has also worked for other publications, including Agents of Fandom. You can also hear Jake every week as the resident film and TV journalist on Track Radio.
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When Kevin Costner left his role as John Dutton in Taylor Sheridan’s hugely popular Yellowstone, the world was in shock. Not only was the actor and the show at the peak of their success, but Costner had found fame with a new generation of viewers after a period without a major hit. Finally, in the past few days, Sheridan has shed light on the situation surrounding Costner’s departure, even admitting that he was “only supposed to be in the first three seasons,” before network pressure due to the show’s popularity changed all that.
“The notion of giving up a hit before it had run out of juice to squeeze is very foreign to a network,” Sheridan said. “Finally, Kevin hit a point where he said, ‘I gotta do my own thing.’ But we originally conceived it together that it was three seasons, and then the baton is handed — because we had to tread water for a bit there, and I think it was pretty evident.” This “own thing” that Sheridan refers to is Horizon: An American Saga, an epic Western tale that Costner not only directed, co-wrote, produced, and starred, but also largely self-funded.
Sadly, the supposed four-part saga has crashed and burned in spectacular fashion, with the enormous financial failure of the first installment leaving the already-filmed second in limbo, and the third and fourth perhaps never to be made. But Costner’s reputation wasn’t always this shaky, with the two-time Academy Award winner starring in one of the **best crime films of the ’80s, **which is now available on a new platform. Starting this month, you can watch The Untouchables, which stars Costner as a law enforcement agent during Prohibition, on Paramount+.
Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.
Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar’s eye and a brawler’s instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn’t matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you’ll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.
Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.
Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
Also starring **Robert De Niro **as notorious gangster Al Capone and **Sean Connery **in one of the best performances in his career, *The Untouchables *was a big hit in 1987, even returning $187 million against its reported $25 million budget at the box office. At the Academy Awards, the film earned an impressive four nominations, taking home gold in just one category, with the aforementioned Connery winning a much-deserved Best Supporting Actor prize. The film was directed by the brilliant Brian De Palma.
*The Untouchables *is available to stream now on Paramount+. Make sure to stay tuned to Collider for the latest streaming stories.
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David Mamet, Chip Miller