Yellowstone Season 5 Has Achieved A Huge Record
Yellowstone Season 5 brought in a massive 15.7 million viewers, making it the biggest premiere of 2022.
The Dutton family continues to break new ground in the television landscape. New numbers reveal the Paramount Network’s Yellowstone Season 5 premiere had even greater viewership than initially thought. According to L3 results from Nielsen, 15.7 million viewers tuned in for the season five kickoff, cementing the premiere of creator Taylor Sheridan’s project as the most-watched cable premiere since AMC’s The Walking Dead in 2017.
The mark for Yellowstone Season 5 also surpasses Yellowstone’s Season 4 premiere numbers, which totaled 14.7 million. The uptick certainly has the folks at the Paramount Network clicking their spurred heels, as the network has no plans of slowing down the expansion of the Yellowstone universe.
Yellowstone Season 5 isn’t the only successful show in the franchise, as the 1883 prequel series starring Tim McGraw, Sam Elliott, Faith Hill, and Isabel May, was also a hit. The show chronicles the westward journey that began during the Dutton Dynasty. Another spinoff arrives this December in the form of 1923. Starring Harrison Ford, this prequel series follows the Duttons as they navigate the pitfalls of the early 20th century.
Ford, who also has a new spot on the Marvel roster and an Indiana Jones sequel on the horizon, is joined by co-star Helen Mirren. The Academy Award-winning actress’s pairing with Ford makes for an unquestionably iconic duo. Mirren is no stranger to joining franchises herself. After joining Vin Diesel in the Fast Saga, the legendary actress will show off her dark side as the heinous Hespera in DC’s Shazam! Fury of the Gods next spring.
Little is known about another Yellowstone spinoff, 6666, apparently set to take place in West Texas. The future of the Yellowstone franchise is set to be full of adventures across time and place, but even after the success of Yellowstone Season 5, the future of the show that started it all is uncertain.
Yellowstone Season 5 follows John Dutton, played by Kevin Costner, into the unenviable realm of Montana politics. A real switch-up for the character, the new role is also a big change for Costner. The actor, who said he was surprised to stay on longer than one season, is on the barbed wire fence about a return for season six. Costner claims he will leave as soon as the role isn’t fun for him anymore. A major shift in the role could freshen things up for Costner or take away what made the actor love the part in the first place.
With or without Costner, the saga of the Dutton family will live on in one form or another, or perhaps even several forms. Yellowstone Season 5, already boasting the honor of the most-watched cable show of the year, still has room to grow its audience. Chris McCarthy of Showtime/Paramount Media Networks noted this season’s spike in young viewers. This, he feels, is a sign of not only immediate success, but the potential for much more.
Viewers hunting for Yellowstone Season 5 on Paramount+ crashed the streamer on the night of the premiere. The show, by the way, doesn’t even air on Paramount+, indicating the show is attracting an insane number of potential viewers who were not accounted for by the already impressive statistics. The legend of Yellowstone is as expansive and unpredictable as the American West, and given its success so far, it could enjoy life equally as enduring.
