‘Yellowstone’ Creator Taylor Sheridan Pulled off One Feat Many Big Directors Will Find Hard to do And it Shows Just How Much Kevin Costner Helped the Franchise

Harrison Ford’s motivation behind taking on 1923 was not as complicated as one might imagine.

Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone universe ever since being founded in 2018 has reigned supreme on television with its ambitious Western tale of ranch life in Montana. What the series has achieved within that time, with Kevin Costner at the helm, is unprecedented in terms of episodic storytelling. Expansive, brutal, and groundbreaking – Yellowstone never falters when it comes to the narrative.

For seven years and five seasons, the plot followed the Dutton family patriarch and the siblings as they fought against the world and clashed with each other to protect what was rightfully theirs. Now that the story comes to an explosive end, the Yellowstone ranch has yet to find a resolution without Machiavellian manipulations and political backstabbing.

The world that Sheridan built from the crevices of his imagination needs no introduction and as such, is a testament to the power and expertise of his storytelling.

Taylor Sheridan Pulls off the Impossible With 1923

Taylor Sheridan has been charting his way through the Yellowstone universe like a 16th-century explorer with the whole world ahead of him, simply waiting to be discovered. With the legacy of an entire series now behind him, Sheridan’s ambition has grown tenfold just as his shows have gotten increasingly entertaining. Armed with an Oscar nomination, the creator has barely scratched the surface of his talents and by the looks of it, he has only gotten started.

His reputation, which has been spreading like wildfire ever since his debut as the scriptwriter of Sicario, has solidified even further with Hell or High Water, Wind River, Yellowstone, and the whole array of Paramount+ original shows supplied directly by Taylor Sheridan to the Paramount Network.

Among those shows lie the Yellowstone spin-off prequel series 1883 and 1923 which have fleshed out the world of the Duttons by diving into the origin arc of the infamous ranch and the era of the Great Depression respectively. Using the real world as his creative well of resources, Taylor Sheridan pulls off the impossible as he also manages to nab two of the biggest Hollywood A-listers to tell his story in a limited series arc.

Harrison Ford Reveals His Reason Behind Joining 1923

As influential as Kevin Costner-led Yellowstone may be, the show finds more substance and becomes infinitely more valuable with the added weight of its prequels – 1883 and 1923. However, it is also the presence of Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren that makes the latter stand out on its own. Speaking during a roundtable interview in 2022, Ford revealed:

“I based my decision on personal meetings with [Yellowstone co-creator] Taylor [Sheridan]. There was no script at the time we agreed. One of the real draws for me was the opportunity to work with Helen [Mirren] again to play my wife, who was the first one aboard.

When Taylor and I met, it probably preceded the script by at least three or four weeks. So he talked me through what his ideas were, and I was impressed by his articulation of his ambition and his sincerity.

And when I got the script, I was very gratified. I think it’s very interesting. It’s ambitious. But it’s a character very different to any that I’ve played so far, and that interests me. I’m always interested in working with new things.”

Calling his work in 1923 and his character as Jacob Dutton a “challenge and an honor” to take on, Ford also admits that even though he loves Kevin Costner’s contribution to Yellowstone, 1883 was more important to him storywise. With the prequel arc now complete, Taylor Sheridan moves forward to expand the Yellowstone universe with two more spin-offs titled, 1994 and 2024.

Yellowstone and 1923 are now available to stream on Paramount+