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Yellowstone co-creator/executive producer Taylor Sheridan has signed a massive new overall deal with ViacomCBS and MTV Entertainment Group for multiple new series, starting with Yellowstone prequel Y: 1883 for Paramount+, which will be unveiled with a teaser Sunday during the Super Bowl on CBS. (You can watch it above.)According to sources, the pact, said to be for five years, is in the nine-figure range and could reach $150 million in success. That would but Sheridan in the top tier of TV’s highest-paid showrunners.

Under the pact, Oscar and Golden Globe nominee Sheridan will create exclusive multi-platform content with MTV Entertainment Studios and his Yellowstone partner 101 Studios, delivering five seasons of new or returning series every year exclusively for the ViacomCBS brands, including Yellowstone‘s home Paramount Network, Paramount+ and CBS.



Y: 1883 follows the Dutton family as they embark on a journey west through the Great Plains toward the last bastion of untamed America. It is a stark retelling of Western expansion, and an intense study of one family fleeing poverty to seek a better future in America’s promised land — Montana.

“Taylor Sheridan is a visionary creative whose work has reinvented genres and amassed fan bases around the globe; we are thrilled he calls ViacomCBS and MTV Entertainment his home,” said Chris McCarthy, president of MTV Entertainment. “We couldn’t be more excited to build upon our partnership with him, expand the Yellowstone universe and showcase Taylor’s boundless talent across all of our brands and platforms.”

The pact takes over Sherdon’s previous overall deal with MTV Entertainment Group signed a year ago. It follows the continuous success of Yellowstone, cable’s most watched drama.



The Paramount Network show’s third season was the most watched season premiere on cable in two years, drawing a record-breaking 6.5 million total viewers in Live+3. The Kevin Costner-starring series, co-created by Sheridan and John Linson, also has developed a passionate fan following and social media presence.

“I am excited to continue the story of Yellowstone and thank you to Chris, Keith and David for allowing me to keep on expanding the family for the fans,” Sherdan said.

Y: 1883 will be executive produced by Sheridan, John Linson, Art Linson, David Glasser, David Hutkin and Bob Yari.

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In addition, Deadline hears that 1883, the prequel series for Paramount+ that tells the story of the Dutton Family’s move Westward from poverty to the promised land in Montana, will begin production August 23 in Texas. The spinoff series tells the story of Manifest Destiny that brought settlers seeking an escape from poverty into conflict with the Native Americans who lived on the unspoiled plains.

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Husband-and-wife country superstars Tim McGraw and Faith Hill have signed on to headline the forthcoming Yellowstone prequel spinoff, titled 1883, at Paramount+. Additional Sam Elliott is also set to star in the offshoot.

1883 follows the Dutton family as they embark on a journey west through the Great Plains toward the last bastion of untamed America. It is a stark retelling of Western expansion, and an intense study of one family fleeing poverty to seek a better future in America’s promised land — Montana.

Elliott is set to play Shea Brennan, a tough as nails, handsome cowboy with immense sadness in his past. He has the herculean task of guiding a group from Texas to Montana, and he does not suffer fools. McGraw and Hill will portray James and Margaret Dutton, the patriarch and matriarch of the Dutton family, respectively.

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1883, the origin story of how Yellowstone‘s Dutton Family came to own the largest ranch in Montana, began production yesterday in Fort Worth, Texas. Taylor Sheridan, who wrote all 10 of Season One’s episodes, is directing the pilot. He has added to the principal cast Isabel May (Young Sheldon) who’ll play Elsa, the eldest daughter of John and Margaret Dutton (played by Tim McGraw and Faith Hill). Through her eyes will come much of the perspective of the family’s struggle when they up and leave Texas aboard a wagon train caravan into hostile territory toward a better life in Montana, where the fictional Duttons reside in the present. LaMonica Garrett (The Terminal List) has also joined the main cast as the right hand of Pinkerton agent Shea Brennan (Sam Elliott), who hitches a ride with the Duttons and many others who’ll fill the 30 actual wagon trains built for this epic-sized adventure series that EP and 101 Studios CEO David Glasser said has the ambitious spirit of past period frontier classics Lonesome Dove, Last of the Mohicans and Dances With Wolves.

I’ve heard that the budget of 1883 exceeds $10 million an episode, and costs more than what’s spent on the slickly produced Yellowstone, which begins its fourth season on November 17. It’s a testament of the faith that ViacomCBS placed in Sheridan when it gave him its largest overall deal, one worth nine figures, this after Yellowstone became the highest rated series on cable TV and the signature series on the Paramount Network. Sheridan has the opportunity to become the cornerstone show creator for Paramount+; the prolific creator and showrunner might well have as many as five dramas on the streaming service within the next 18 months. There is already the Jeremy Renner-Dianne Wiest-starrer Mayor of Kingstown bowing November 14, with 1883 coming December 19. Both will air exclusively on Paramount+, though the debut episodes of both series will also air on the Paramount Network following new episodes from Yellowstone‘s fourth season. At least three more Sheridan-created dramas are in the writing or casting stage — one is a Yellowstone spinoff.

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