“Yellowstone” Co-Creator Taylor Sheridan Eyeing Spinoff Series With Matthew McConaughey
Talk about a major swap of star power in TV’s top-rated drama.
Deadline reports that Yellowstone co-creator and showrunner Taylor Sheridan is looking to make a major change in the hugely popular western, ending the current series with its current crop of stars, including lead Kevin Costner, and moving next season—its’ sixth—with Matthew McConaughey in talks to star. It’s not yet clear how many current cast members from the series would continue on in the one led by McConaughey.
So far, this is technically speculation and word-of-mouth, as a Paramount Network spokesperson told Deadline the following: “We have no news to report. Kevin Costner is a big part of Yellowstone and we hope that’s the case for a long time to come. Thanks to the brilliant mind of Taylor Sheridan, we are always working on franchise expansions of this incredible world he has built. Matthew McConaughey is a phenomenal talent with whom we’d love to partner.”
Costner stars as John Dutton in the series, alongside Luke Grimes, Kelly Reilly, Wes Bentley, Cole Hauser, Kelsey Asbille, and Gil Birmingham. He is currently directing and starring in a multi-part Western called Horizon for Warner Bros. Pictures and New Line. According to Deadline, scheduling issues have led to the decision to move on to the new version of Yellowstone with McConaughey starring. He’d be stepping into Sheridan’s sprawling Western universe that also includes the two prequel series, 1883 and 1923.
Costner’s turn as the weathered hitman John Dutton has been the fulcrum around which the drama has swirled in the series, bringing the Dutton Family no small amount of danger. Their Montana ranch has been attacked, both violently and through shady political and legal schemes, with various factions trying to rip the ranch away. Deadline isn’t sure whether the McConaughey-led franchise extension would be set on the Dutton ranch in Montana or somewhere else.
Sheridan’s one of the busiest people in the business, having already created 1883 within the Yellowstone universe, which was a limited series that bowed in December 2021 and starred Faith Hill, Tim McGraw, and Sam Elliott and revealed how the Duttons came to own the land upon which the Yellowstone ranch was built. Then with 1923, which bowed in December of 2022, Harrison Ford and Hellen Mirren starred as the generation of Duttons that survived prohibition, the Great Depression, and all the trauma and turmoil of that era. There are two more potential series, set in the 1940s and 1960s, being worked out.
There’s yet more in Sheridan’s universe, including Bass Reeves, starring David Oyelowo as the titular Black deputy U.S. Marshall, a contemporary western titled 6666 set on the Four Sixes Ranch in Texas, and freestanding contemporary series Tulsa King, starring Sylvester Stallone, Mayor of Kingstown, starring Jeremy Renner, and Lioness, an espionage series starring Nicole Kidman, Zoe Saldana, and Morgan Freeman.
And now it sounds as if Matthew McConaughey is going to join the Sheridan Universe. Who could blame him?
Featured image: SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – NOVEMBER 20: Matthew McConoughey launched an off-grid cabin he co-designed with Wild Turkey’s charity initiative, With Thanks, at The Royal Botanic Gardens November 19, 2019 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Brendon Thorne/Getty Images for Wild Turkey)
