Cole Hauser and Kelly Reilly have signed on for the new series.
The Season 5 finale of Yellowstone airs Sunday on Paramount Network. But that doesn’t necessarily mean we have seen the last of Rip and Beth.
According to various online sources posted Wednesday, Kelly Reilly and Cole Hauser have closed deals to lead a spinoff series about their characters. Other regulars from the original Yellowstone — except for Kevin Costner, of course — are expected to also be on board for the new show, which continues the saga of the Dutton family dynasty in the wake of mega-rancher John Dutton’s death.
“Led by Yellowstone characters played by the same actors in the same present-day time frame,” wrote Nellie Andreeva of Deadline, “the new offshoot shares the most DNA with the mothership of any shows in the Yellowstone universe to date, which explains why it will be the first spinoff to carry Yellowstone in the title, sources said.”
So why not just produce a Season 6?
“The idea of Reilly and Hauser shooting more Yellowstone episodes beyond season five was first reported in August,” reported William Earl of Variety, “when they were being courted to lead a sixth season of the Paramount Network series. But a spinoff, which sources say would still include Yellowstone in the title, would be a more likely option, as it would be classified as a wholly new series. That would allow Paramount to keep it within its own streaming ecosystem, whereas the mothership Yellowstone series currently airs on the linear Paramount Network but streams on the NBCUniversal service Peacock.”
Producer Taylor Sheridan has already given us two Yellowstone prequels — 1883 and 1923 — focused on past generations of the Dutton family. 1883 ran for a single season, but 1923 will return for its second and reportedly final season Feb. 23. (Reruns of Season 1 episodes currently are airing on Paramount Network.) The franchise’s first contemporary spinoff, The Madison, starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Matthew Fox, is expected to premiere on a TBA date in 2025.
Apart from the Dutton family saga, Sheridan also has produced Lawmen: Bass Reeves, Tulsa King, Mayor of Kingstown, and Lioness. Most recently, he launched Landman, a contemporary drama starring Billy Bob Thornton as a Texas oil company crisis manager, which currently is midway through its first season on Paramount+.
Since the Nov. 10 kickoff of what had been billed as the “final cycle” of Yellowstone episodes, Sheridan has been thinning the herd in terms of his cast. In the very first Season 5B installment, John Dutton was murdered by hit men who tried (but ultimately failed) to make his death look like it was a suicide. (There continues to be some debate as to whether John bit the dust only because Kevin Costner left the series, or Dutton had always intended to have some sort of final-season demise for the character.) Subsequently, we’ve seen the murder of Sarah Atwood (Dawn Olivieri), the Market Equities corporate shark who hired the aforementioned hit men, and the accidental death of ranch hand Colby Mayfield (Denim Richards), who was trampled to death by a temperamental horse.
Many fans of the series expect the treacherous Jamie Dutton (Wes Bentley) will add to the body count in the Season 5 finale. But we won’t know for certain until Sunday, will we?
Photos: Paramount Network
