‘Yellowstone’ Star Kevin Costner Preps New National Parks Series, ‘ISB’ at ABC

Kevin Costner is bringing America’s National Parks to television screens. The Yellowstone star is developing a one-hour drama titled ISB that will focus on the Park Service’s Investigative Services Branch for ABC. According to Variety, Costner will executive produce the project, as well as co-write with showrunner Aaron Helbing. The network has a put pilot commitment with a penalty attached, giving extra incentive to see ISB through to airing.

ISB will follow the elite special agents of the Investigative Services Branch who end up having to solve some of the most complex and heinous crimes committed within the National Parks of the ISB’s Pacific West region. Along with Costner and Helbing, Rod Lake, Ivan Cohen, Ken Halsband and Jon Baird of Costner’s Territory Pictures Entertainment will also executive produce.

“This project came from a long-running friendship with Tana Jamieson of A+E Studios,” said Costner about ISB. “We had previously developed a project together and when she asked me to work with her on this, her passion for the project made it an easy decision for me and Territory. I am excited to be working with ABC because of their history of breaking new ground and for their strong support of our creative vision.”

The multi-Oscar winning actor has carved out a niche for himself in the Peak TV era. In addition to developing ISB, Costner stars as rancher John Dutton in Paramount Network’s modern-day noir/western Yellowstone. The show just finished its second season and was recently picked up for a third over the summer.

The show also added Lost alum Josh Holloway as a recurring character for season three. In a conversation with PopCulture.com, Yellowstone star Luke Grimes teased that Holloway’s character would be someone “you’re not going to really know, good guy, bad guy, what’s happened here? What’s this guy after? And I think that’ll be exciting.”

Yellowstone can trace its roots to 2016, when Costner spoke about a 10-hour western he’d envisioned. While he wasn’t aiming specifically for the small screen at the time, as he saw it as a trilogy of feature films, it seems that’s where it ended up.