Yellowstone Creator Taylor Sheridan May Retire Sooner Than You Think

At this point, Taylor Sheridan has basically become a TV god. With his "Yellowstone" series, the man tapped directly into the sensibilities of middle America, entrancing dads across the nation with a soapy neo-Western that remained hugely popular right up until its fifth and final season ended in December 2024. But that was just the beginning of what became a TV empire. Several "Yellowstone" spin-offs have created an entire franchise out of the mothership show, with "1883" and "1923" extending the story of the Dutton family and proving that "Yellowstone" star Kevin Costner was not the only reason audiences responded to the original series in the first place.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, other streamers and networks started to take notice, leading to a flurry of Western-tinged programming, from Netflix's "American Primeval" and "Ransom Canyon," which dominated the Netflix charts in 2025, to ABC's "Big Sky." We've even seen the Yellowstone name start to creep into movies, as was the case with the obscure 2022 murder mystery Western "Murder at Yellowstone City," which started its life as "Murder at Emigrant Gulch" before it was renamed for unconfirmed reasons that almost certainly have something to do with the Sheridan effect.

This is to say nothing of the other Sheridan-created shows that have sprung up in abundance following the success of "Yellowstone." Spy thriller series "Lioness," Western-style oil industry family drama "Landman," and the Sylvester Stallone-led crime drama "Tulsa King" are just some examples from an alarmingly long list that raises the question of how on earth Sheridan is managing to balance all his commitments. With that in mind, it wouldn't be the most shocking revelation if he were to announce his retirement — which might happen sooner than you think.

Taylor Sheridan could quite comfortably retire at this very second. The man has come to dominate the TV landscape, but he's also managed to shoehorn himself into multiple facets of production, casting himself as Travis Wheatley in "Yellowstone" and reportedly charging Paramount $50,000 a week to film the show on his ranch before it wrapped up with its controversial fifth season. Oh, and he also provided most of the horses for the series, teaching the cast to ride and basically embodying the real-life Wheatley.

With a slew of other TV projects up and running and his ownership of the 6666 and Bosque Ranches, both in Texas, Sheridan is on top of his TV game. When you consider he's also the man behind the scripts for "Sicario" and "Hell or High Water," and that he further wrote and directed "Wind River," he's long since proven his big screen talents.

As such, you can forgive the guy for feeling a little burnt out and ready to retire sooner rather than later. "This volume of work is not sustainable for a long period of time," as Sheridan told Variety in a 2022 interview. "But it's an opportunity to tell stories the way I want to tell them with a creative freedom that just doesn't exist in this space. And so I kind of have to take advantage of it." That might sound like the "Yellowstone" creator was ready to take a step back in 2022, and he was certainly thinking about it, telling Variety, "I don't necessarily want to be doing this when I'm 70. I don't know that I want to be doing it when I'm 60. I'd rather work real hard to do it now." Sheridan was 51 when he made those comments and is now 54, suggesting his retirement before the age of 60 is fast-approaching.

Based on his comments, you'd expect to have seen Taylor Sheridan's output to wind down in the time since his 2022 Variety interview. But the opposite is true. Before he became known as the prolific writer he is today, Sheridan started out in Hollywood as an actor, appearing in guest roles on TV shows such as "Veronica Mars" and "Star Trek: Enterprise" prior to landing a recurring role on "Sons of Anarchy." Since turning to script writing, however, his career has really taken off, leading to the sprawling TV empire that exists today. But Sheridan clearly isn't completely done with acting. He made his character, Travis Wheatley, a big part of "Yellowstone" season 5 (to its detriment, if you ask some fans) and has shown up in various guest appearances on several of his other series. Meanwhile, he's also running a horse reining competition, which has been captured for a Western series you've probably never heard of.

To put it simply, then, Sheridan shows absolutely no signs of slowing down. If anything, the number of TV shows he's creating just seems to be increasing alongside numerous other extra-curricular activities, which suggest he's far from packing it all in. Perhaps Sheridan will abruptly disappear in the coming years as his 60th birthday approaches. But if his shows continue to be as successful as they are, I can't imagine Paramount will let him go easy.