Beth and Rip could continue on in Taylor Sheridan’s ‘Yellowstone’-verse, the actor hints.

The romance of fan favorites Beth and Rip could continue beyond Yellowstone, actor Cole

Hauser hints. The final episodes of the Paramount Network hit are set to begin

production sometime this year. But Hauser suggests the characters played by himself and Kelly Reilly might have a future beyond the show’s fifth season closer — presumably, in Paramount+’s planned Yellowstone spinoff 2024 (working title). “I’m so focused on finishing Yellowstone the way it needs to be finished right now — well, just the show itself,” Hauser recently told Country Living. “We’ll see where that leads. But I know that there’s some stuff on the horizon when it comes to Taylor’s ideas for Kelly Reilly and myself, and some of the other cast. I’m excited to see where he goes creatively with that.

But right now it’s just: Let’s finish strong; let’s do the best we can.” Reilly seemed to likewise subtly hint at sticking around in an interview a month ago. “I just care about finishing [the main show] with as much care and as much passion and as much love as I can muster to put into it. That’s what I care about. I’m sort of prepping for that now [and] that’s my tunnel vision thing that I care about most. And what goes on beyond that? There are discussions, you know. Don’t believe everything you read. It’s just nonsense. But we’re gonna, you know, let’s wait and see. I don’t have an answer right now. But we’ll see.”

Last year, Yellowstone showrunner Sheridan seemed pretty set against bringing over any of the current cast to the show’s planned spinoff. But a recent report from media newsletter Puck said that Sheridan had changed his mind, and that the showrunner was eyeing Hauser and Reilly, and perhaps others, for the new show. Matthew McConaughey was in talks for the lead for the drama, though that was never finalized. When confirming the end of Yellowstone, Paramount Network announced 2024 as the first-ever Yellowstone sequel; a present-day story to take place after the events of Yellowstone that would continue exploring the Dutton family dynasty with new characters and locations, as well as some existing characters, per the release at the time. It was given a straight-to-series order.

The network also announced another prequel, 1944, which would follow in the footsteps of limited series 1883 and 1923, the latter which has been renewed for a forthcoming second season. As for whether star Kevin Costner will appear in the final Yellowstone episodes, the actor has recently suggested he wants to return finish off John Dutton, but there’s no indication that will actually happen. “I’d like to be able to do it but we haven’t been able to,” he said. “I thought I was going to make seven [seasons] but right now we’re at five. So how it works out — I hope it does — but they’ve got a lot of different shows going on. Maybe it will. Maybe this will circle back to me. If it does and I feel really comfortable with [it], I’d love to do it,” he said last month.