Taylor Sheridan talks about the end game for his popular Paramount Network series in a wide-ranging Hollywood Reporter interview.
Taylor Sheridan is typically blunt-spoken and aggressively confident in a wide-ranging Hollywood Reporter interview released Wednesday. And the multitalented multitasker is refreshingly no-BS forthcoming as he discusses everything from the early rejections his endured while he first shopped around Yellowstone — the phenomenally successful Paramount Network series he co-created with John Linson — to his first reaction when he learned the purchase price of the iconic 6666 Ranch in the Texas Panhandle. (“I said, ‘How much?’ They said, ‘It’s $350 million.’ And I’m like, ‘I’m about 330 short. But please, you thought enough to call me, will you give me two weeks?’”)
And some folks might be mightily surprised by his sympathetic words about Kevin Costner, who has been castigated by many media types and diehard Yellowstone fans — wrongly, in Sheridan’s view — for the upcoming end of the flagship series in Sheridan’s ever-expanding TV universe because of Costner’s focus on his epic Horizon.
“My opinion of Kevin as an actor hasn’t altered,” Sheridan told Hollywood Reporter writer James Hibberd. “His creation of John Dutton is symbolic and powerful … and I’ve never had an issue with Kevin that he and I couldn’t work out on the phone. But once lawyers get involved, then people don’t get to talk to each other and start saying things that aren’t true and attempt to shift blame based on how the press or public seem to be reacting.
“He took a lot of this on the chin and I don’t know that anyone deserves it. His movie seems to be a great priority to him and he wants to shift focus. I sure hope [the movie is] worth it — and that it’s a good one.”
Dig a little deeper into the interview, however, and you’ll see there is possibly bad news and potentially great news ahead for Yellowstone viewers.
Paramount had originally announced that the “final cycle” of Yellowstone episodes would start airing in November — which, unfortunately, now appears doubtful at best, impossible at worst, because of the ongoing writers strike (to say nothing of a possible actors strike). “Sheridan insists he’s dutifully pencils down at the moment,” Hibberd writes, “and that he broadly supports the WGA’s efforts.”
On the other hand: Sheridan doesn’t feel bound by previous reports that the “final cycle” would consist of only six episodes.
“If I think it takes 10 episodes to wrap it up, they’ll give me 10,” Sheridan said. “It’ll be as long as it needs to be.”
Indeed, Paramount likely will be amendable to anything Sheridan decides, considering what a valuable asset he has proven to be by providing the Paramount+ streaming platform with such popular series as 1883, 1923, Mayor of Kingstown, Tulsa King, and the forthcoming Lawmen: Bass Reeves and Special Ops: Lioness.
Consider this: When 1883 began its encore run on Paramount Network last Sunday, the first installment attracted nearly four million viewers — making it the No. 1 scripted series premiere on cable in three years.
Paramount has undoubtedly calculated how many more viewers would tune in for an extended “final cycle” of Yellowstone. So has Taylor Sheridan.
