Why ‘Yellowstone’ Creator Taylor Sheridan ‘Strongly Considered Walking Away’ From the Show

The success of Yellowstone completely changed the career trajectory of the show's creator, Taylor Sheridan, becoming the cornerstone of an empire that's made him one of the most powerful people in television today.

But the writer, director and producer admits he nearly quit the show before it could even get off the ground.

Talking to Bloomberg, Sheridan says the early days of the show nearly changed his mind about committing to it.

Sheridan was already a well-respected filmmaker with movies including Sicario, Wind River and Hell or High Water under his belt when he began trying to sell Yellowstone as a series, and he had no luck initially.

A potential deal with HBO fell through, and the show ended up landing at the fledgling Paramount Network, which was in the process of re-branding from the former Spike TV.

Sheridan clashed with executives from the beginning over the show's enormous budget, as well as his outright refusal to take meetings or read notes from the network.

The first two seasons were a fair ratings success. Yellowstone drew an average of 6.3 million viewers during Season 2, but due to its inflated budget, the network still lost $50 million that year, and the show was in the chopping block despite the star power Kevin Costner brought to the table.

“I strongly considered walking away,” Sheridan tells Bloomberg. “It was a very, very difficult process.”

When a new CEO took over Paramount in 2019, he realized Yellowstone could not only be a flagship show for the network, but it could also be a successful franchise. He moved the show to a better timeslot and took advantage of changing viewing habits during COVID isolation by running marathons of the previous seasons before Season 4 debuted, and the strategy worked.

Yellowstone's audience mushroomed to more than 12 million viewers per episode during Season 4, making it the most successful scripted series on television, and Sheridan followed up with two extremely successful prequels, 1883 and 1923.

According to Bloomberg, the Yellowstone franchise has raked in an estimated $2.9 billion to date, with an estimated profit of $700 million.

That's just the beginning. Though Yellowstone came to an end in December of 2024, there are several more spinoffs on the way, with even more in various stages of planning:

• Cole Hauser and Kelly Reilly will star to star in a Yellowstone sequel that focuses on their characters, Rip and Beth, which is tentatively slated for the Fall of 2025.
• Luke Grimes will star in his own Yellowstone sequel as Kayce Dutton, with the working title of Y: Marshals.
• A Yellowstone sequel titled The Madison is also in the works. Michelle Pfeiffer, former Suits star Patrick J. Adams and former Lost star Matthew Fox are set to star in that show.
• 1944 is another prequel that's been reported, but Paramount has yet to provide any details. It's not clear if 1944 will come to fruition.
• 6666 is a show that Sheridan proposed, and he re-arranged part of the plot of Yellowstone to set it up. But Sheridan has acknowledged it's on hold for now, since filming would disrupt the real-life working 6666 ranch, in which he is a part owner.

As part of his deal, Sheridan has also produced a very successful slate of non-Yellowstone content for Paramount, including Landman, Lioness, Mayor of Kingstown, Lawmen: Bass Reeves and Tulsa King.

Bloomberg reports that the success of those shows has made Sheridan into the most profitable showrunner in television today.