Yellowstone fans excited to explore the Four Sixes Ranch for its long-awaited spin-off will be sorely disappointed, with creator Taylor Sheridan revealing that the project has been shelved.

Despite Paramount previously announcing that a spin-off about the ranch, titled 6666, was in development, Sheridan has clarified that he never intended to make the show.

The Four Sixes Ranch, which is an active ranch in Texas’s King County, plays a role in seasons four and five of Yellowstone when character Jimmy Hurdstrom (Jefferson White) heads to a fictionalised version of the historic ranch to learn how to be a cowboy.

Paramount revealed in 2021 that it had commissioned 6666 as a spin-off, set when Comanches ruled West Texas two centuries before the events of Yellowstone. That same year, a buyer group represented by Sheridan bought the ranch after previous owner Anne Burnett Marion died the year before.

However, speaking on the Rodeo Time podcast, Sheridan said “there’s never going to be” a spin-off about the Four Sixes Ranch.

“I would never fictionalise that ranch,” he said. “People thought that that was going to be a thing, but I would never do that.”

He added that he didn’t want to be “making up lives” and “inventing a drama” at a ranch that is still active. “So now I’m trivialising and fictionalising something where real people work, and they raise their families there, and I could never do that to them,” he said.

“I could never do that to the cowboys that dedicated themselves, and everybody that works on that ranch. I’m very protective of the Sixes, and it’s a big responsibility to be the person who has to protect that ranch, so I have to be very, very careful with it.”

Despite the cancellation of 6666, the Yellowstone universe is still going strong; while the original show ended in 2024 after five successful seasons, it has spawned four spin-offs for Paramount+ about the origins of Yellowstone National Park’s gun-toting, horse-riding Dutton family.

Prequel shows 1883, starring Tim McGraw and Faith Hill as post-Civil War Duttons, and 1923, starring Helen Mirren and Harrison Ford as their Prohibition-era descendants, recently came to an end – however, sequels Marshals and Dutton Ranch are still airing on CBS and Paramount+.

Dutton Ranch, which picks up with Beth Dutton and Rip Wheeler after the original series, was recently renewed for a second series. However, star Ed Helms revealed last month that he wasn’t particularly happy with his experience on the first.

The actor, 52, admitted that he felt “misled” about his character’s involvement in the series, having thought that he was one of the four main roles. “I said, ‘I’m feeling underused and inconsequential.’ I was just a little frustrated, to tell you the truth,” he said.

While he’ll be returning for the second series, he threatened to quit the show and asked his team to “get me the f*** out of here”.

Marshalls, which follows former US Navy SEAL and rancher Kayce Dutton (Luke Grimes), is the next show to return, with series two airing in October.