Taylor Sheridan has established a baseline so unique that no other filmmaker in the industry could replicate his creative skills, no matter how hard one tried. The Yellowstone creator has delivered some of the best projects in recent pop culture history with his dual mastery in the medium of both film and television. He then quickly rose to fame for singlehandedly reviving Westerns.
However, all of it began with his failure to make a mark in the industry as an actor for nearly 25 years. Exhausted with the struggle, Sheridan decided to go the distance himself by debuting his skills as a writer. His first-ever script, Sicario, became the symbol of great cinema – both visually and narratively.
10 years later, the actor-turned-filmmaker can return to base and revisit his roots by delivering a story that can harken back to his first frontier trilogy film.
It’s time for Taylor Sheridan to revisit Sicario
While Yellowstone and its 5 seasons remain one of Taylor Sheridan‘s most widely discussed and renowned projects, the filmmaker is better skilled at delivering stories with a much shorter arc. Films and limited series are better served under Sheridan’s purview than long-term shows like Kevin Costner‘s.
Since his debut as a scriptwriter, Taylor Sheridan’s best projects have been first and foremost his frontier trilogy, comprising Sicario, Hell or High Water, and Wind River. The three grueling films nested within the genre of neo-Westerns deliver a power-packed gut-punch of tragedy and ambiguous morality of the human condition.
With Yellowstone now over, Sheridan can finally go back to his roots after discrediting himself with his sluggish writing in the series’s final two seasons. In one of the many spin-offs that are set to branch out of Yellowstone, Sheridan can expand Kayce Dutton’s storyline by delving into his military past in a Sicario-style limited series.
Yellowstone spin-off branches out into Sicario 3
In Sicario, one of the film’s many jarring and tragic moments was delivered in the ending when Benicio del Toro‘s character kills a woman and a child in vengeance. The arc echoes Kayce Dutton doing the same in Afghanistan after his SEAL team was pinned down by the opposition, who was using a woman and a child as human shields to fire at them.
The short flashback can now be elaborated upon as it already sets the narrative framework for an interesting and highly-charged prequel storyline for Luke Grimes‘ character from Yellowstone. With nearly a dozen characters getting their individual spin-offs after the series finale, it’s not unreasonable for Taylor Sheridan to delve into Kayce’s history as well – in a limited series arc.
While there are already talks of a Kayce spin-off in the works, the project is said to be spearheaded by Spencer Hudnut (who created SEAL Team) at CBS. According to Deadline, Sheridan collaborated with Hudnut for over a year on the project and will still be involved as showrunner and producer. Hudnut himself is a fine choice for the spin-off, considering his prior experience with the genre of military drama.
The only matter of concern is whether Hudnut will be able to recreate a poignant, hard-hitting, and psychologically nuanced take on Kayce Dutton’s spin-off or end up turning Sheridan’s legacy character into another run-of-the-mill CBS procedural.
Yellowstone is available to stream on Paramount+.
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