Paramount+ Orders More ‘1883’ and Another ‘Yellowstone’ Prequel

Paramount+ is expanding the saga of the Dutton family.

The streamer has ordered more episodes of 1883 along with another Yellowstone prequel series, it announced Tuesday.

The new show is titled 1932 and “will follow a new generation of Duttons during the time of Western expansion, Prohibition and the Great Depression.”

As for 1883, the company stopped short of calling the order a renewal or second season. No reason was given, but adding another batch of episodes to an existing season is sometimes a contractual sleight of hand used in order to continue a series without invoking the salary bumps triggered by an additional season order.

For fans, however, the order effectively amounts to the same thing — an eventual return to the 1883 Dutton clan (played by Tim McGraw, Faith Hill and Isabel May) as they trek westward along with a group of settlers through the treacherous, untamed countryside.

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In addition, Paramount+ announced key castings for other projects from Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan: Billy Bob Thornton has been tapped for the lead role of the previously announced series Land Man, which is a modern-day Texas tale set in the world of oil rigs. Zoe Saldaña has been cast in the upcoming series Lioness, which is based on a real-life CIA program and follows a Marine recruited to befriend the daughter of a terrorist and bring the organization down from within. Nicole Kidman, with her production company, Blossom Films, will join Lioness as an executive producer.

All the announcements were made Tuesday during parent company ViacomCBS’ Investor Day livestream presentation.

The first 1883 order consisted of nine episodes; there’s no word yet how many additional episodes have been ordered. The show’s December season premiere drew 4.9 million viewers on Paramount Network, the biggest launch for a new cable series in years. (Audience figures for 1883 on Paramount+ aren’t available, per usual with most streaming platforms.)

“The incredible storytelling and stellar performances behind 1883 have fueled phenomenal new records for Paramount+,” said Tanya Giles, chief programming officer for Paramount Streaming. “Promoting the series through linear sampling on the Paramount Network during their latest record-breaking season of Yellowstone further enabled us to introduce Sheridan’s loyal audience to this fantastic new series. We look forward to bringing fans even more of the Duttons’ origin story.”

The series marks the latest expansion of executive producer Sheridan’s Dutton-verse, with at least one other Yellowstone spinoff, the Texas ranch-based 6666, also in the works.

“While most shows franchise near the end of their run, we seized the opportunity to franchise in real time, to drive record growth for both streaming and linear properties, proving the power of ViacomCBS’ differentiated model,” added Chris McCarthy, president and CEO of Paramount Media Networks and MTV Entertainment Studios.

Outside the Yellowstone saga, Sheridan also has the drama Mayor of Kingstown, which was recently renewed by the streamer, and the upcoming series Tulsa King (formerly Kansas City), which stars Sylvester Stallone — in his first starring TV role — as a former New York Mafia capo who’s exiled to Oklahoma after being released from prison. If that weren’t enough, he’s also developing Bass Reeves, a limited series about a legendary lawman with David Oyelowo attached to star.

Sheridan has quickly become one of TV’s most prolific and valuable showrunners and is on his second nine-figure overall deal at ViacomCBS.

The one hiccup in the rollout strategy has been that ViacomCBS licensed its valuable exclusive streaming rights for Yellowstone to Paramount+ rival Peacock, creating confusion among viewers as to which platform has the franchise and preventing the company from putting all the franchise’s titles under one roof. Adding to the muddle is that since season four, new episodes of Yellowstone have premiered on the Paramount Network cable channel — which is separate from Paramount+. ViacomCBS executives have reportedly attempted to buy the rights back, but Peacock has been unwilling to part with the show.