Teaser for ‘Yellowstone’ Prequel Series ‘1923’

Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren Feature in the Teaser for ‘Yellowstone’ Prequel ‘1923’

The show will chronicle the days of Jacob Dutton and Cara Dutton, who battle drought, the great depression and more to keep their homestead going.

Taylor Sheridan has certainly found a rich vein of Western-flavored TV to tap for his ever-expanding ‘Yellowstone’ franchise.

With the well-established ‘Yellowstone’ bubbling along nicely (the fifth season just debuted), he’s also dug back into the history of the Dutton clan and their territory for this year’s ‘1883’.

And it continues to attract big names following the likes of Kevin Costner, Kelly Reilly in ‘Yellowstone’ and Sam Elliott, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill in ‘1883’.

With all due respect to Costner and Elliott, the leads for ‘1923’ might be the most exciting yet, as the show will follow the hardships and triumphs (and if it keeps to established format, more of the former) of Jacob and Cara Dutton, played by Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren. And the teaser for the new spin-off is now online.

Linked directly to ‘1883’ but set 40 years later, ‘1923’ has some of its connective tissue via Ford’s Jacob, who is the brother of McGraw’s James. And we’ll learn the ultimate fate of the ‘1883' characters (again, we’re not hopeful of some big happy ending).

(L to R) Harrison Ford as Jacob Dutton and Helen Mirren as Cara Dutton in '1923' streaming on Paramount+ 2022. Photo Credit: James Minchin III/Paramount+.

This time around, Dutton Ranch faces challenges like drought, pandemics, Prohibition, and the beginning of the Great Depression.

Alongside Ford and Mirren are other new faces on the Dutton ranch that must rise to this era’s challenges. James Badge Dale plays John Dutton Sr, just a little boy in ‘1883’ who’s now a middle-aged manager at the ranch with Ford’s Uncle Jacob. Marley Shelton plays his wife Emma, while Darren Mann is Jack, their son, who’s the great-grandfather of Costner’s character on ‘Yellowstone.’ Others include Michelle Randolph’s Elizabeth Strafford, who wants to marry Jack, and Brian Geraghty’s Zane, a loyal foreman on the ranch. There are characters beyond the Dutton ranch, too. Aminah Nieves plays Teonna, a Native American woman forced to attend a government-run boarding school. Meanwhile, Jerome Flynn leads the “sheep men” as Banner Creighton, a Scottish shepherd who serves as this series’ big bad.

“You’re very close to the bone here,” Ford told Vanity Fair. “The story is told in a very honest and straightforward way. There’s no apology for what becomes necessary to do. There’s a very strong moral context that’s frangible. The Duttons live by a code of behavior that they set for themselves, and it requires complicated moral and ethical judgment. It’s not just the physical life that’s hard… the upcoming Depression and all of the pressures, economic and social, are leading up to this very volatile time in American history.”

And like its stablemates, this is no small show, with filming at the sprawling Yellowstone ranch in Montana, but also in South Africa, Tanzania, and Malta, to give a sense of the saga’s scope.

Just don’t get too attached to ‘1923’ though – while it is indeed a series, it’s currently only planned to run for two seasons.

The first will debut on Paramount+ on December 18th.