Taylor Sheridan reveals why Yellowstone spinoff had to be scrapped
Yellowstone co-creator Taylor Sheridan has insisted the previously announced spinoff series will "never" be made.
Yellowstone co-creator Taylor Sheridan says the planned 6666 spinoff series will "never" happen.
The 56-year-old writer and producer, who created the hit Western drama and its prequels 1883 and 1923, has shut the door on a previously announced spinoff based on the Four Sixes Ranch in Texas.
He told the Rodeo Times podcast: "There's never going to be one. I would never fictionalise that ranch.
“People thought that that was going to be a thing, but I would never do that.”
Speculation about a 6666 series first started when Jimmy Hurdstrom, played by Jefferson White, was sent to the ranch during season four.
Paramount announced the series during its Upfront presentation in 2022, and Taylor admitted the scenes he'd written could make a "perfect little movie".
He said: “I’ve actually got on my computer all the scenes of Jimmy at the 6666 pulled out and strung together, and it makes its own perfect little movie.
“You watch him go there as this misfit, and leave as a man and a respected cowboy.”
But Taylor, who bought the ranch in 2020 with a group of investors, made the decision not to push on with the idea as he felt a "big responsibility".
He explained: “So now I’m trivializing and fictionalizing something where real people work, and they raise their families there, and I could never do that to them.
“I could never do that to the cowboys that dedicated themselves, and everybody that works on that ranch.
"I’m very protective of the Sixes, and it’s a big responsibility to be the person who has to protect that ranch, so I have to be very, very careful with it.”
Before moving into writing and production, Taylor got started playing Danny Boyd in Veronica Mars, and went onto portray David Hale in Sons of Anarchy.
He recently revealed he quit the latter due to a pay dispute.
During an appearance on The Howard Stern Show, Taylor explained: "I've taken my beatings.
"The worst beating, which is also the greatest gift that I ever got, season two of Sons of Anarchy had ended, it's a very successful cable show, [and] I'm an actor making scale. I'd literally leave the set and go to my other job, because I didn't make enough on that show to pay my rent and live.
"So, after season two, I told them, 'Guys, I'm not coming back and doing this again for this price.'"
Taylor wanted his bosses to match the $20,000 that the other supporting series regulars were receiving. However, they were unwilling to meet his pay demands.
He recalled: "They couldn't do it.
"We're not talking about an exorbitant amount of money, especially not in LA. They said, 'We'll give you 15, and we'll guarantee you 10 episodes, that's all you're getting.' I do the math, and I said, 'That's not a raise. No.'
"My attorney responded to this business affairs guy, 'I've got kids on cooking shows on YouTube that make more than that,' and he goes, 'Then the guy should go get a cooking show on YouTube. We just don't have to pay him because there's 50 of that dude; I can recast him tomorrow.'"
