Taylor Sheridan may never produce another series as wildly popular as “Yellowstone.” NBCUniversal will not suddenly steal away the rights to “Yellowstone” from Paramount. But the changing of the guard that will result in Sheridan taking his services from Paramount to NBCUni is seismic all the same because his name brand is more valuable than almost any individual IP he’s created.
As Puck first reported on Sunday night, Sheridan intends to strike a new overall deal for both film and TV with NBCUniversal once his commitments to Paramount are completed. Sheridan’s film deal with Paramount expires in March and his new film deal with Universal will begin next year, and he’s tied up with Paramount on the TV side until 2028, at which point he’ll then be able to start making shows for NBCUni. He’ll still be expected to stay plenty busy with Paramount until that time, but his time making a mountain of entertainment for Paramount has an end date.
Paramount and NBCUniversal each declined to comment for this story.
It’s a shocking coup for a few reasons. For one, Paramount’s new CEO David Ellison recently fawned praise over Sheridan as his new company’s top creator, calling him a “singular genius” with a “perfect track record.” “My goal is to have Taylor call Paramount his home for as long as he wants to be telling stories,” Ellison told CNBC in August.
Paramount too since it merged with Skydance is the one that has been doing the poaching. One of the new regime’s first major deals was to woo the Duffer Brothers away from Netflix, offering them the chance to make culture-defining movies for theaters in a way Netflix would’ve been reluctant to offer. James Mangold signed an overall deal with Paramount and will now call it home for years to come. It was also unafraid to bring back Will Smith and Johnny Depp from Hollywood jail and make them the face of new franchises. Paramount even locked up “South Park” creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker for $1.5 billion, because it would be a blow if they walked out the door too.
What Paramount realized, just as Donna Langley did at NBCUni, is that it’s the people that are worth spending on, not brands. Langley is making the bet that Sheridan will continue producing hits at the pace he’s done at Paramount, but also that audiences are coming to watch because it’s a Taylor Sheridan project. That they’re spinoffs of the Dutton family or are star vehicles for Sylvester Stallone or Nicole Kidman are secondary.
Thus far Paramount had been willing to write Sheridan a blank check because his shows — “Mayor of Kingstown,” “Tulsa King,” “Landman, “Lioness,” “1923,” the reality competition series “The Road,” and upcoming series “Y: Marshals,” spinoff “NOLA King” starring Samuel L. Jackson, and “The Madison” — comprise the majority of Paramount+’s streaming strategy. Those and new episodes of “Knuckles.” The shows may be expensive, which Puck reported may have been part of the reason that led to the divorce, but they deliver, continually topping streaming charts.
Sheridan also has rare clout to operate the way he wants. He’s the auteur creator who writes all his series on his own, he stays put on his Texas ranch and shoots most of his series from his home state, and he’s had the clout to push back on even his stars like Kevin Costner when it comes to who really calls the shots on the direction of the show.
There are only a handful of TV creators who have such clout in the industry. Shonda Rhimes and Ryan Murphy have virtual free reign at Netflix. Non-writers like Dick Wolf and Jerry Bruckheimer are still immensely important name brands. People like Donald Glover, Greg Berlanti, Chuck Lorre, Noah Hawley, Mindy Kaling, Jesse Armstrong, Kenya Barris, and Lisa Joy & Jonah Nolan inspire that kind of loyalty and (for most of them) back it up with prolificness. Sheridan though is 1-of-1, and soon he’ll be taking his mess of shows, the type of output you can literally build a streaming service around, to NBCUni and Peacock.
When the 2023 writers strike arrived, it became clear how valuable of currency it was to have an overall deal with one of those top names. Studios en masse suspended all of its first look and overall arrangements with writers, and the studios used the opportunity to purge from its ranks some of the expensive ones with talent that weren’t actually resulting in any shows. The ones that remained are the cream of the crop, and lack of activity has never been Sheridan’s problem.
By setting him up with a film deal as well, Sheridan is in a position to be a top filmmaker and a top showrunner. Universal knows how to market its auteurs, be it Steven Spielberg, Jordan Peele, or coming movies from The Daniels and Christopher Nolan. Those are similarly names who can get the clout to do what they want at the pace they want because they have a track record and an audience that is now showing up because it’s a Nolan movie or Peele movie, not because of the IP they’re working with.
We’ll see if Sheridan can join that company on both sides of the aisle. He has a film for Warner Bros. called “F.A.S.T.” likely arriving next year, and before “Yellowstone,” he looked like he was on a hot streak of movies thanks to the unofficial trilogy of “Sicario,” “Hell or High Water,” and “Wind River.” His last feature, “Those Who Wish Me Dead” with Angelina Jolie, fizzled at the box office with just $19.1 million worldwide.
Eventually, Paramount+ will get the streaming rights back to “Yellowstone” itself, which famously was licensed to none other than NBCUni’s Peacock. By that time though, Peacock could have its own new Taylor Sheridan shows to make up for it.