Taylor Sheridan has confirmed a previously announced Yellowstone spin-off series is not going ahead.
In 2021, Paramount announced plans for a show titled 6666, which would be set in the present day and on the Four Sixes Ranch in Texas, which Sheridan owns.
In the years since, four spin-off Yellowstone series have been created, however, 6666 had not yet gone into production.
This week Sheridan announced it had officially been cancelled.
Appearing on the Rodeo Time podcast, he said: “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.”
After the 6666 owner died in 2020, a group led by Sheridan purchased the property, however, he has now said he did not want to be “making up lives” and “inventing a drama” at an active ranch.
“So now I’m trivialising and fictionalising something where real people work, and they raise their families there, and I could never do that to them,” he said.
“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.”
In 2021, Paramount announced plans for a show titled 6666
When the show was first announced, the official synopsis teased: “Founded when Comanches still ruled West Texas, no ranch in America is more steeped in the history of the West than the 6666.
“Still operating as it did two centuries before, and encompassing an entire county, the 6666 is where the rule of law and the laws of nature merge in a place where the most dangerous thing one does is the next thing.
“The 6666 is synonymous with the merciless endeavour to raise the finest horses and livestock in the world, and ultimately where world-class cowboys are born and made.”
Initial plans for that spin-off began in the fourth season of Yellowstone which sent character Jimmy Hurdstrom (Jefferson White) to work on the real-life ranch.
The showrunner also cast real-life members of the community to appear in the episodes that were set there.
Reflecting on having scenes filmed at his ranch, Sheridan 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.”
Yellowstone aired for five seasons, running from 2018 until 2024.
It centred on the Dutton family and starred Kevin Costner as John Dutton, owner of the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch.
Although the 6666 series never materialised, in 2021 the spin-off series 1883 premiered.
It was followed by 1923 in 2022, and then Marshals and Dutton Ranch earlier this year.
Source: Press Association