Yellowstone is a famous neo-Western drama television series that has successfully aired five seasons. It was created by Taylor Sheridan and John Linson. The show stars prominent names like Kevin Costner, Luke Grimes, Kelly Reilly, Wes Bentley, Cole Hauser, Kelsey Asbille, and Gil Birmingham. The Paramount Network show has become a massive hit among the masses. As per the creators, the series was initially pitched to HBO. One of the co-creators of the show, Taylor Sheridan, opened up about being turned down by one of the biggest production houses, as they didn’t see potential in the script.
Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan pitched the script to HBO
Kevin Costner’s show creator, Taylor Sheridan, opened up in an interview with 6666ranch about getting disapproval from HBO. The writer-producer shared that he had initially shown two scripts of Yellowstone to HBO executives, but they decided to pass on the script as they felt nobody would watch it.
Sheridan recalled the words of the senior vice president of HBO,
“Nobody wants to see this. Nobody wants to see a movie about this. And you don’t understand why anybody is sitting out there in the first place. The whole thing should be a park.” And I said, “Buddy, you’re the exact reason that I’m making this.”
HBO’s original hit series include Game of Thrones, Watchmen, The Sopranos, The Wire, etc.
Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan initially doubted Paramount Network
The producer of Yellowstone was stunned when Paramount Network approached him for making the show. They flew him down to LA and offered to make a show from Taylor Sheridan’s viewpoint. They told Sheridan,
“We want to make this. No development, no nothing. We want you to go shoot it.”
Taylor Sheridan was unsure about working with Paramount,
“At this time, Paramount was really trying to rebrand from being Spike TV. They really wanted to push and become this premium cable outlet. But I didn’t necessarily believe that they could do it. I said, ‘I don’t know if this is the right thing for you, because it’s so ambitious. It’s going to be so expensive. It’s not going to make sense from a production standpoint.’”
He added,
“But they had such an appetite for it, they said, ‘We’re going to do this,’ and they did.”
Sheridan shared that the team at Paramount was excited to work with them for making the show, Yellowstone. He shared,
“It was as difficult as I said it would be, and as expensive and as challenging. But they trusted me. There were a few times, I think, when they covered their eyes and looked down. But they never said stop. And they did the same thing this season. If you think about it, we were one of the first TV shows to start shooting again during this coronavirus.”
The first season was aired in 2018, and season 5 part one was aired between November 2022 and January 2023. The second part of season five is yet to be announced.Yellowstone is available for airing on Paramount, Peacock, Fubo, and Spectrum.