In news that’s sure to rock fathers and Western fans everywhere, Paramount’s drama-plagued hit show Yellowstone is coming to an end. We already knew that star Kevin Costner was likely leaving, so this shouldn’t come as a total surprise. That said, the time has not come to pack up the horses and ride off into the sunset—at least, not yet.
As Costner prepares to leave the growing on-screen universe from writer and Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan, Variety reports that a sequel is on its way—and Matthew McConaughey has been reported as a possible star. Still, not everything appears to be “alright, alright, alright” in this sprawling TV frontier.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Sheridan’s budgets are through the roof—and even then, the production sometimes overshoots its proposed spending. The studio, meanwhile, reportedly has trouble saying “no” to its golden goose—even as Sheridan allegedly charges Paramount as much as $50,000 per week to film on his ranch, rather than somewhere that might come with a tax break.
ADVERTISEMENT
Yellowstone expenses included $23,519.19 for horse saddles “in the style used by Royal Canadian Mounted Police.” The Journal also cites an invoice indicating that gun and prop rentals for two episodes of Yellowstone Season 5, initially budgeted for $36,000, came in at $67,942.50. Perhaps the most eye-popping Yellowstone charge, however, was the $214,979.61 that the Journal reports Sheridan charged Paramount for a weeklong “Cowboy Camp” held at his ranch. (That bill reportedly included a $33,000 allotment for catering alone.)
The Journal reports that Sheridan plans to merchandise his ranch’s brand through beer, apparel, and “even a service that will deliver beef from the ranch’s cattle to your door, with plenty of publicity for the brand generated by his shows.”
Paramount reported a $511 million loss in its streaming business for this year’s first quarter, the Journal notes. But at the same time, Sheridan’s series play a critical role in the company’s business; the Yellowstone prequels 1883 and 1923 reportedly netted 10 million subscribers for its streaming service, Paramount+, in 2022’s fourth quarter.
While Sheridan declined an interview with the Journal, a spokeswoman for Paramount told the paper that his series are “among our most successful and profitable.”
“If we could do three more partnerships with people as successful, creative and prolific as Taylor, we’d do it in a heartbeat,” the representative added. Meanwhile, executives at 101 Studios, the company that makes his shows, told the Journal that they collaborate with the showrunner to find a balance between cost savings and quality control.
The final episodes of Yellowstone Season 5 will land this November, and the still-untitled sequel series will debut in December. As Variety notes, the first half of Season 5 wrangled a whopping 17 million viewers. With numbers like that, Sheridan could keep holding the reins for many years to come.
