Paramount Execs Tried To Force Taylor Sheridan To Retcon The Ending Of 1883

Sheridan explained that the studio executives didn’t quite believe what they were reading when they got to the finale script for the “Yellowstone” prequel. He said: 

“I know they read the scripts, but they don’t read scripts, so when they read the last episode of 1883, I don’t think they digested what had just happened, even though I made it quite clear from the very beginning. The story I heard is Bob Bakish watched it and said, ‘wait a minute, she dies! They all die? What do we do in season two?’ I said, there is no season two. They’re like, there better be a fu*king season two because we already picked it up. I’m sitting here going, guys everyone is dead.”

To be perfectly honest, I had the same shock reaction, but coming from a viewer’s standpoint, it felt really brave to show deaths on the trail, something that was pretty common back then. The journey West was incredibly perilous. I loved Isabel May’s performance in the series, but as heartbreaking as the story was, it felt right. Of course, from the studio side, it makes sense that they’d already given the green light to a second season and were surprised by what was written. 

That said, it got weirder. Sheridan said, “They wanted to have a meeting about how Sam Elliott survived his suicide. By the very nature of the term, it’s not something survivable, and who would want to see that?” Of course, that sounds strange, but Elliott was a big name for the series. However, the desire for more of the Dutton’s story led to “1923.” 

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