The upcoming Season 5 finale of Yellowstone will not be the end of the Dutton clan’s story. Series standouts Kelly Reilly and Cole Hauser have closed deals to lead a spinoff series, reprising
their roles as Beth Dutton and Rip Wheeler, respectively, sources tell Deadline.
Taylor Sheridan, the mastermind behind Yellowstone and its ever-expanding universe, is working on the creative for the new show, which will likely feature other cast members from the
mothership series alongside Reilly and Hauser, I hear. Led by Yellowstone characters played by the same actors in the same present-day time frame, 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.
Ahead of the Sunday Season 5 finale of Yellowstone, there had been growing confusion over what happens next for the characters in the hugely popular drama series who are still alive at the end of the upcoming episode.
As Deadline reported in August, Yellowstone producers MTV Entertainment Studios and 101 Studios had been negotiating with Reilly and Hauser for months. The two initially had been eyed for a spinoff. It emerged over the summer that the duo may carry on as leads of Yellowstone Season 6 as the series moves on after the death of its original central character, Kevin Costner’s John Dutton.
That scenario was supported by the fact that Paramount Network, which originally had announced Season 5B as Yellowstone‘s last installment, quietly dropped that messaging when the teaser for the sub-season was released in June, touting the new episodes instead as the saga’s “epic return.” Similarly, the promo for the upcoming closer calls it a season finale, not a series finale.
While the intent remains to continue the story in Yellowstone and a source indicated that doing another season was not completely out of the question, the focus ultimately returned to doing it in a new series, I hear. That would allow Paramount Network’s parent Paramount Global to keep the show within the company’s ecosystem unlike the mothership series, which has a pre-existing exclusive streaming deal with NBCUniversal’s Peacock.
Yellowstone revolves around the Dutton family who controls the largest contiguous cattle ranch in the United States. Reilly’s Beth is John Dutton’s (Costner) daughter, a former head of acquisitions at Schwartz & Meyer financial firm. Hauser’s jaded ranch foreman Rip Wheeler, who first came to John Dutton as a young boy on the run after killing his stepfather to protect his mother, learned how to be a cowboy from John who treated him like a son.
Season 5B kicked off with Dutton’s death and has chronicled its aftermath, with two other characters — Denim Richards’ Colby and Dawn Olivieri’s Sarah — subsequently killed off. The fate of the ranch is hanging in the balance since the new governor is moving ahead with plans to split up the Yellowstone property and develop it — exactly what John Dutton didn’t want. The penultimate episode on Sunday hinted that John’s son Kayce (Luke Grimes) may be hatching a plan to save the property for future generations, prompting Beth (Reilly) to exclaim, “why didn’t I think of that?”
Providing a validation that Yellowstone remains a big audience draw sans Costner, the new installment has been a ratings juggernaut, with Episode 4, which featured Colby’s death, drawing a season high 12.1 million viewers, according to Paramount Network.
Yellowstone was co-created by Sheridan and John Linson who executive produce with Art Linson, Costner, David C. Glasser, Bob Yari, Stephen Kay, Michael Friedman, Christina Voros and Keith Cox. The series is distributed by Paramount Global Content Distribution.
The Yellowstone franchise’s first contemporary spinoff, The Madison, starring Michelle Pfeiffer, is slated to follow Season 5B of the mothership series. Its prequel series include 1883 and 1923.
