Taylor Sheridan put himself on the map as a prominent TV showrunner and creator with Yellowstone. While the actor-turned-screenwriter had already made it in Hollywood with the scripts for Sicario and Hell or High Water, the neo-Western show truly gave him the break he needed, and it has now turned into a full-fledged franchise.
While the franchise has multiple spinoff shows spanning genres, the one thing it lacks is an animated spinoff. An R-rated animated show set in the Yellowstone universe would be incredible, as the show already has most things set for it to be a success. Here are all the reasons why Sheridan should consider making it happen.
| Show Name | Yellowstone |
| Creator/Showrunner | Taylor Sheridan |
| Main Cast | Kevin Costner, Wes Bentley, Luke Grimes, Kelly Reilly, and Cole Hauser |
| Number of Seasons | 5 |
| Network | Paramount |
| Rotten Tomatoes – Tomatometer | Popcornmeter (as of August 4, 2026) | 83% | 76% |
1. The Yellowstone Franchise Has Already Grown Beyond the Flagship Show
Sheridan’s world has grown into a genuine multi-series ecosystem. There are five publicly announced sequels, prequels, and spinoffs in various stages of development beyond the prequels that already aired, 1883 and 1923, plus Sheridan’s separate slate of Mayor of Kingstown, Tulsa King, Lawmen, Lioness, and Landman.
That’s an enormous canvas of characters, feuds, and unresolved backstories that live-action scheduling and budgets can’t fully mine. An animated arm would not compete with the flagship shows; it would fill the gaps between them, telling stand-alone, R-rated stories that never had room in a nine-episode season.
2. Animation Does Not Need to Follow the Network’s Restraint
While Yellowstone is already pretty violent, broadcast standards have a ceiling above which a certain level of gore and violence cannot be shown. The show’s TV-MA rating allows for more mature themes and visuals to be shown, but it is not entirely free of mutes and cuts. An R-rated animated show for Paramount+ would not have to follow such restraint.
An R-rated animated spinoff could show gunfights, gore, and cartel violence with the same unflinching honesty Sheridan brings to his scripts, without a broadcast standards department softening the impact.
3. Sheridan Has Proven His Comfort in Going R-Rated
While Yellowstone is his most prominent work, Taylor Sheridan has created a bunch of other shows beyond the franchise and has not shied away from exploring more violence on screen. His shows like Tulsa King and Mayor of Kingstown are known to show more bleak atmospheres than Yellowstone.
Mayor of Kingstown especially is a slow-burning crime drama set in a fictional Michigan town where incarceration is the city’s biggest industry, centered on the McLusky family as they mediate between gangs, police, wardens, and the legal system. That’s exactly the kind of morally bleak, violence-adjacent material that animation could render even more starkly.
4. There is a Lot of Room to Explore in Yellowstone
Not every Sheridan project stays tethered to the Dutton family tree, which is precisely the opening an animated spinoff needs. The Madison, once billed as a Yellowstone spinoff, has now been separated from the franchise’s TV universe and will air as a standalone show.
That precedent shows Sheridan and Paramount are willing to let Yellowstone-adjacent stories exist outside strict continuity, exactly the freedom an animated, R-rated project would need to go darker and weirder than the mothership without disrupting it.
5. Adult Animation is Seeing an Upward Trend in Viewership
While animation has been historically thought to be skewing younger, adult animation has been on a steady rise for years. According to a report, the adult animation industry was valued at $62.4 billion in 2025 and was expected to reach $118.7 billion by 2034 (via Data Intelo). Streaming is one of the biggest reasons for this rise.
An adult animated Yellowstone spinoff definitely falls in the trend, taking a leaf from shows like Invincible and The Boys Presents: Diabolical.
6. R-Rated Animated Yellowstone Helps Paramount+ Be a True Competitor
According to a report by 3vision, Netflix contributes to 51% of the adult animation market, with shows like Inside Job and others contributing significantly to the streamer’s slate. Paramount+ has long been trying to be a major player in the Streaming Wars, and has a lot of Sheridan-created shows in its roster.
Animation is one place where Paramount+ seems to be lacking, especially in adult animation. A Yellowstone spinoff would be the perfect addition to its slate, being part of the larger franchise and leading its loyal viewers to a whole new experience.
7. The Yellowstone Franchise Has Proven Its Genre Diversity
While Yellowstone was set in the neo-Western genre, Taylor Sheridan has been exploring other formats with the franchise. For instance, the Luke Grimes starrer Marshals has gone into the procedural zone and follows Kayce Dutton after he joins a special team of U.S. Marshals following his father’s wish to protect the ranch.
The success of Marshals (which has already been renewed for a second season) proved that the audience would accept a change of genre within the franchise. An animated spinoff would only need good writing and quality animation to be a success. The genre variety will have nothing to do with it.
8. The Yellowstone Universe Has Violent Shows Ready for Development
An R-rated Yellowstone spinoff is not too far-fetched because the flagship show itself never shied away from violence. Heck, the pilot begins with a horse accident where John Dutton puts it out of its misery. Beyond that, the franchise itself has plenty of material that makes it ripe for an animated spinoff.
The reported spinoff 6666, based on the ranch featured in Yellowstone Season 4 and pronounced ‘Four sixes,’ was first announced by Paramount back in February 2021 but has seen no meaningful updates since. Rather than let that concept languish in development limbo, an animated R-rated take could resurrect it cheaply and quickly.
9. Animation Can Help Taylor Sheridan’s Production Bottleneck
Taylor Sheridan’s contract with Paramount has reportedly been renewed up to 2028, after which he will be going to NBCUniversal for a long-term film and TV deal (via Deadline). This means that the Sicario writer has only two more years to completely control the direction of the franchise, and judging by his usual process, it might be tough to completely map it out.
Sheridan is known for owning the complete process, with fewer people involved in the writer’s room and the filmmaker mostly choosing to showrun himself. Animation could definitely help ease the burden of production bottlenecks, taking away reliance on actor schedules for shows to be produced.
10. The Yellowstone Franchise Is Built for Violence and Gore
Yellowstone has never softened its darkest turns, and its spinoffs are following suit. Marshals opened by revealing that Monica Dutton had died from cancer caused by toxins on the reservation, sending Kayce into an elite unit combining his Navy SEAL and cowboy skills to fight crime in Montana.
That’s grim, adult material even in a broadcast-friendly procedural. An unrestrained, R-rated animated format would let Sheridan lean fully into that darkness with the visceral freedom animation gives writers that network television, even at its bleakest, still can’t match.
What do you think an animated, R-rated Yellowstone spinoff should explore? Comment below.
Yellowstone is available to stream on Paramount+.
