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Besides owning the bragging rights to the title of "co-star of the second-highest-grossing Ashton Kutcher vehicle currently in theaters," Kevin Costner also has a significant stake in the Midnight Star casino in South Dakota—a pit-stop on the way to Vegas where Clark W. Griswold-types can drag their families and enact lifelong Old West gambling fantasies before loading up on souvenir fleeces and Costner DVDs in the gift shop on their way out of town. Costner is now attempting to squeeze out his two business partners, who may only own a grand total of 6.5% of the business, but who are making the buyout as painful as possible:

He hired Francis and Carla Caneva to manage the operation and gave them ownership of 6.5 percent. He fired them in July 2004, asking them to part ways as partners, too. When they declined, he chose to dissolve the partnership.

In order for that to happen, the casino's fair market value had to be determined. Costner hired an accountant who put the value of the Midnight Star at $3.1 million. The Canevas got another Deadwood casino owner to testify that he would pay twice that — $6.2 million.

No mention is made of what led to the radical management restructuring, but based on a cursory perusing of the Midnight Star's depressingly sparse website, we'd say whatever the Caneva's shortcomings, thinking too big was not one of them. (The
"Memorabilia" link does bring you to photos of the casino's original prop and costume displays, arranged behind glass in an artful, flattened-on-hangers motif.) Hopefully, business will soon return to normal: It would certainly be a shame if further legal wranglings forced the Star to the same fate as The Burt Reynolds & Friends Museum, keeping decades of priceless, self-curated collectibles away from crowds of starstruck tourists looking for some up-close Hollywood history along with their half-pound Tatanka burgers.