Why Taylor Sheridan Nearly Retired After ‘Yellowstone,’ But Couldn’t

Taylor Sheridan planned to retire after Yellowstone, but a story involving the Four Sixes Ranch made him stay in the business, the screenwriter has revealed. It wasn’t the previously announced (and now dead) 6666 spinoff series that kept him in Hollywood, but rather his real-life purchase of the actual Four Sixes Ranch.

Paramount announced a Yellowstone spinoff about the Four Sixes in 2022, with Sheridan attached as executive producer and the studios behind Yellowstone set to produce. The ranch was featured in Yellowstone Season 4, when Jimmy (Jefferson White) was sent to Texas to become a better cowboy. The Four Sixes Ranch is legendary in real life, and its owner, Anne Marion, died in 2020. Sheridan leads an investment group that bought the ranch in 2022 following the previous owner’s death.

That $330 million purchase, Sheridan recently shared, prompted him to sign a deal with Paramount to continue making shows. Sheridan has since decided not to renew his exclusive contract with Paramount. Once that contract expires in 2028/2029, he’s moving to NBCUniversal with a new exclusive deal.

“I was set up to retire. I was going to be done after Yellowstone,” Sheridan told the Rodeo Time podcast on August 17. He said he already owned a ranch in Weatherford, Texas, that he had paid for in cast, so he “didn’t owe anybody anything.”

“I was going to put my feet up and show horses, and have my little hobby herd over here, and that was it,” Sheridan explained, and then came the Four Sixes opportunity.

“I knew that if I bought this ranch, I was not going to be quitting my day job for a while,” he shared.

Sheridan met Marion while filming Yellowstone at the Four Sixes. He said that, after her death, the ranch was going to be split and sold in different pieces. Marion wanted her estate to find someone who would “maintain her vision” to buy it, per Sheridan. “And, so, the person they came up with was me,” he said.

“I said, ‘Well, boys, I’m a little short. In fact, I’m about $300 million short,'” Sheridan shared. He was previously hesitant to make an “exclusive deal” with Paramount, but buying this ranch changed his mind.

“They were terrified that I was going to go to greener pastures and leave them and go somewhere else, which I probably was,” Sheridan told Rodeo Time. “But once this happened, I called them, and I said, ‘You know what? I think I’m ready to make an overall deal.’ And they said, ‘That’s great. Do you have a number in mind?’ And I said, ‘Why yes, I do.'”

Sheridan also revealed on the Rodeo Time podcast that he was “never” going to make a series about the Four Sixes Ranch, despite being attached to 6666 as an executive producer and the show having a series description already. It was also moved from Paramount+ to Paramount Network at one point, indicating that development had been active at some point.