Yellowstone is quite literally the biggest show on television.
Save for NFL Football, it’s the most watched thing on cable television and with various prequels and spinoff in the works, as well as Season 5, it’s showing no signs of slowing down.
And while it’s expected to finally get some love from the Emmys this year, Kevin Costner says Westerns are generally hard to make because the average person can’t relate to it:
“Westerns, specifically, they can look really dumb, they can look obvious. They’re hard to make, and that’s the problem. I
t’s like, it’s hard to make a Western you can relate to.”
That’s where Taylor Sheridan comes in.
The creator of the series is a real life cowboy who thrives off delivering an authentic and relatable Western experience.
A former actor turned superstar writer, Sheridan is responsible for films like Sicario, Wind River and Hell Or High Water, among others, but now that we’ve the kind of success that Yellowstone is having, Paramount Network has backed up the truck for Sheridan.
With a whopping 10 shows in the works, including the Yellowstone prequel 1932, the Yellowstone spinoff 6666, and the new 1883 extension about Bass Reeves, Taylor might be the busiest man in show business.
And if you think that’s going to compromise the storytelling, guess again.
Sheridan runs a tight ship when it comes to scripts:
“I don’t run much of a democracy. The words are the words. I don’t tell people how to act, I don’t need anyone to tell me how to write.”
But believe it or not, Sheridan says just about everyone in Hollywood passed on Yellowstone, citing that “nobody was doing TV Westerns” anymore as the reason.
Sheridan was quick to prove the naysayers wrong:
“Look, anytime that Hollywood says a genre is dead, it’s because they made a bunch of bad movies about it.”
Yellowstone Season 5 is set to premiere on November 13th.
You can watch the full interview withy Kevin Costner, Taylor Sheridan and Paramount Network President Chris McCarthy, below:
Taylor Sheridan Quits Acting
Don’t ever wake up a sleeping giant…
Back before Taylor Sheridan created the masterpiece of Yellowstone, he was simply another actor trying to make a name for himself in Hollywood, and struggling to support his family.
However, when he got the part of Chief David Hale on Sons of Anarchy, he truly believed things were turning for the better.
Of course, that didn’t happen as it should’ve, and according to Deadline, a humiliation after asking for a raise is what blazed the trail for his famed screenwriting career.
Sheridan recalled a conversation his attorney had with an asshole business affairs attorney for the show:
“When my attorney said, ‘Look, there are kids on the Cartoon Network making more than you’re offering this guy,’ this jerk business affairs attorney goes:
‘He probably deserves to make more, but we’re not going to pay him more, because guess what? He’s not worth more. There are 50 of him. He is 11 on the call sheet. That’s what that guy is and that’s all he’s ever going to be.’
That’s really when I quit (because) that’s how the business saw me: ‘Let’s replace him with someone cheaper.’ And I decided that I didn’t want to be 11 on the call sheet for the rest of my life.”
Needless to say, the reality that he was a nothing actor, and that attorney’s blunt way of telling him, lit a fire inside of him. Taylor said goodbye to acting and started screenwriting and directing.
And where has it taken him?
He’s created critically acclaimed shows and movies like Sicario, Hell or High Water, Wind River, Yellowstone, 1883, along with a number of TV series he has in store.
And even though Taylor Sheridan might feel like he’s been doing this for years, it still feels like it’s just the beginning of the Taylor Sheridan empire.
Yellowstone Season 5 is set to premiere this coming November, with the new prequel series, 1932, following in December. And that’s just a couple of the shows he’s working on right now.
Taylor Sheridan Had 7 Months To Write and Film ‘1883’
Back in 2021, before 1883 even had a trailer, we knew that the Yellowstone prequel series was going to a massive endeavor.
Filming outside in Texas and Montana, building a real life traveling set with tons of wagons, accurately reflecting the times and staying true to time period… it’s a tall order.
With that being said, a number of 1883 cast members, including Tim McGraw, Sam Elliott, LaMonica Garrett, and even Taylor Sheridan, discussed the challenges while filming the show in an interview with Cowboys & Indians.
And one of the biggest challenges right out of the gate? Time.
When Sheridan wanted to start filming in early 2022, and Viacom/CBS wanted to premiere the show in December of 2021. That gave Sheridan all of 7 months to get this entire thing finished, and considering he was in the midst of working on Yellowstone and The Mayor of Kingstown, and all he had written for 1883 was the pilot script, Sheridan told ViacomCBS executive Keyes Hill-Edgar it was impossible.
As Taylor recalls, Hill-Edgar’s response went a little something like this:
“Look, we are betting the house on this, and we are fucked if you don’t do it. We’re paying you a lot of fucking money, so you fucking figure it out!”
Of course, when Sheridan told the story at the December gala premiere of the first two 1883 episodes at Wynn Las Vegas, he swapped out all the f-bombs for “trucking” because there were kids in the room.
But whether it’s fucking or trucking… Sheridan had to get cranking on it. There was no half-assing it. There was no cutting corners. If they were gonna do it, they were gonna do it right. And if he was gonna make this happen in just 7 months, he was gonna need a big blank check… and they obliged:
“It was impossible to have something air in seven months that wasn’t cast, with no locations, and no other scripts.
I said, ‘This first episode I’ve written is the best thing I’ve ever written. If I can’t have the time to make it right, I need everything else. I need the toys, I need the cast, I need the team. You will need to trust me, and it’s going to hurt.’
And I did not hear the word ‘no’ at all.”
And… they got it done.
Chad Galster, Sheridan’s longtime editor and collaborator, added:
“All of us collectively were saying at first, ‘How are we going to do that?’ And I still don’t know how we did it, but we did it and it’s airing. I mean, we are still working on it, but somehow, we got it done.
And I don’t know if it was the time pressure or the result in energy, but for myself, I think it’s the best thing that I’ve ever worked on. And I believe Taylor has said the same thing, and we’re all incredibly proud of it. And it is a minor miracle that it is on the air for people to enjoy.”
Needless to say, they assembled a top-notch team, did an incredible job of picking up a star studded cast in almost no time, which makes it even more impressive that they were able to put a solid show up by December.
I mean, the end result was stunning, but the best part of all of this may be… it’s only just the beginning.
Yellowstone To Release Second Prequel Series, ‘1932’
Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone universe is growing.
In addition to the new prequel series, 1883, as well as the up and coming spinoff based on the newly-acquired Texas ranch, The Four Sixes, the wide world of Yellowstone is looking to fill the gaps with a brand new Paramount+ series titled, 1932.
According to Hollywood Reporter, the new series will take place during The Great Depression:
“The show will follow a new generation of Duttons during the time of Western expansion, Prohibition and the Great Depression.”
1932 will essentially serve as the second season of what will become a Yellowstone Prequel Anthology Series.
We also know that it will star Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren, but the rest of the cast remains a secret.
Taylor Sheridan says it’s all about reinventing the wheel again:
“We’re in an interesting time in scripted drama and TV because everyone is attempting to find this new way in to tell a story. And I’ve done it with all shows where I looked at a forgotten part of the American experience.”
With Yellowstone I had built out this backstory of where the Dutton family came from and with ‘1932’ I chose that moment in time to peek back in because you’re seeing the children we met in ‘1883’ now attempting to raise another generation of Dutton at a time of the wild west is becoming a playground for the elite from the East.”
Buckle up… it sounds like Taylor Sheridan and Yellowstone are just getting warmed up.
If you’re looking for the entire Yellowstone soundtrack, complete through every episode of Season 4, then look no further.
Our Yellowstone: The Soundtrack Playlist, featuring every song from every episode, updated in real time, every Sunday night.
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