You’ve probably heard the big news. Taylor Sheridan — the prolific creative force behind Yellowstone, 1923, Tulsa King, Special Ops: Lioness and a slew of other well-reviewed hits — is moving his television deal from Paramount to NBCUniversal in 2028 when his current pact expires. He’ll also begin making films for Universal starting next year.
The departure is startling. Paramount’s biggest TV hitmaker just walked out the door, and into the arms of a competitor, a couple of short months after David Ellison took command of the company and praised Sheridan as “a singular genius with a perfect track record.” Did Ellison make a massive blunder? Or is he playing Go while everyone else is moving backgammon pieces?
With the industry abuzz, two veteran Hollywood Reporter staffers — one of whom wrote an authoritative Taylor Sheridan cover story after traveling to his 6666 Ranch in Panhandle, Texas — sat down to hash this all out.
Steven Zeitchik: So I kind of eye-rolled that this was a major loss given how expensive Sheridan is. Like, within the optics of Hollywood you never want talent to walk out the door, and as someone who wrote the definitive profile on Sheridan you know firsthand how valuable that talent is. But this is going to save Paramount a lot of money and they will still have all the shows that brought them 80 million Paramount+ subscribers. And will continue cranking out more new ones in the next two years while even keeping a lot of them going after he leaves.
James Hibberd: I agree that Paramount+ already has a lot of Sheridan content that could be spun-off into other shows; there’s an argument of “how much Sheridan stuff does Paramount+ actually need?” But if I were them I would worry about him focusing on his new home once he gets there. Sheridan tends be pretty hands-on (too hands-on, some current and former showrunners would say). But how much is he going to care about, say, Dutton Ranch season three and Tulsa King season five if he’s busy spinning up new content for NBC? Like assuming, “We don’t need the chef if we got his recipes” might not be right.
SZ: I think Paramount would say “we’re not worried about that now, by then those shows will have a life of their own or they’ll be dead anyway, either way.” It’s a little like a long-term contract in sports, sometimes you’re like “why didn’t the club just lock him in long term” but then the other side of that is “this guy is at his prime now, if you lock him in for that long you’re kind of shooting yourself in the foot because the player’s impact will diminish and the contract won’t age well.” You could kind of imagine Ellison and [new Paramount execs] Jeff Shell and Andy Gordon looking at each other and saying: Why are we paying someone so much money for something so far down the road?
JH: There is a logic there, but I do find it funny that Paramount snatched The Duffer Bros. from Netflix for an exclusive, four-year film and TV deal that was certain to come with a hefty price tag. Yet The Duffers have made exactly one hit show. And while I love Stranger Things, there’s no evidence yet that they can replicate it. Whereas Sheridan has repeatedly proven he can. Plus Sheridan’s shows are expensive, north of $10 million per episode, but the final season of Stranger Things reportedly cost around $50-to-$60 million an episode, a number that would instantly make Paramount+ stress vomit.
SZ: You definitely make a good point in the Duffer-Sheridan contrast — fewer more expensive shows vs. more (relatively) cheaper shows seems like the wrong bargain to make. Of course, you can also say there’s more upside with Duffers — you’re paying them for all the shows they will make. Where with Sheridan you already have so many of those shows. So what are you paying him all his new money for?
JH: That speaks a little to another skeptical comment I’m seeing out there is that Sheridan will be somehow out of gas by the time he exits. That Paramount got the good stuff, then NBC gets some leftovers. As one of our editors pointed out, there’s no reason Sheridan can’t be the next Dick Wolf. His formula — as much as he has one — isn’t too far from edgy and soapy versions of what CBS and NBC have done for decades their long-running procedural dramas.
SZ: That’s fair, but they’re really not format shows in the same sense, are they? You need to create them anew – they’re so character-driven. Sheridan just makes it look fast and easy.
JH: Sure, but that doesn’t mean the original series hasn’t done a lot of creative heavy lifting and given you the ingredients for another hit. Like NOLA King is an upcoming spin-off of Tulsa King. They could pop one of those things in every midsize city by the time they’re done.
SZ: A slightly frightening proposition. One thing that’s interesting to me is the precedent with other creators. If you pull back and look at the precedents these ship-jumping deals don’t have a huge history of working out. Look at Ryan Murphy, big splash, leaves 20th for Netflix, then back at Disney. Or the Game of Thrones creators leaving HBO for Netflix, which hasn’t worked out so great. There’s a reason people stay where they are. The devil you know.
JH: There is a certain undeniable arc of “person creates hits, gets lured away with a mega-deal, then struggles to replicate success.”
SZ: I think there’s some stat like 70 percent of free agent signings don’t work out. And there’s a good reason for that. You’re buying high.
JH: That’s true. But I think the idea that people will be tired of Taylor Sheridan shows is also untrue. It feels rather elitist to me. It sounds like: “Telling stories about tough, resourceful and capable conservative-leaning Americans who live outside of places like New York and Los Angeles is just a trend.” CBS and NBC always seem to think these shows need to be set in major urban cities, while Sheridan realized there’s a whole lot of the country being overlooked.
SZ: The elitism point is interesting. But also it’s not like anyone is stopping Paramount from doing other shows set in the heartland. Other people can write them besides Taylor Sheridan. In fact that might be its own form of elitism — “without Sheridan, how could they possibly keep hitting this audience?” Well, find other writers who know that world too! I mean Warners has done that with Brad Ingelsby, obviously a different setting but also a working-class part of America that Hollywood has left under-tilled. It’s not like Taylor Sheridan is the only person in America who can write a show about redder spaces.
JH: Let’s also take into account when evaluating this deal that the Sheridan drama-meter has appeared to quiet down over the last year. Like there was the massive dust-up over Kevin Costner and getting backlogged and showrunners stepping down a couple years back. But this year has been ultra-productive and rather quiet on the Sheridan front. Both Landman and Tulsa King turned around new seasons in almost exactly a year. He’s got that massive studio space he’s building outside Fort Worth.
SZ: That’s probably the best argument you can make in the Paramount-dropped-the-ball column — he has a machine, it’s still kicking into higher gear, as you noted the studio space which our colleague Winston covered a few months ago is now a thing, why give that up.
JH: And don’t forget Taylor Sheridan is a name that you can slap on a show’s marketing campaign, put in a headline for a new show’s trailer, and it will drive viewers. Like I’m not sure any showrunner out there has a brand that translates into curiosity tune-in as much as Sheridan has right now. Like people buy his Four Sixes branded steaks, coffee and BBQ sauce.
SZ: I’m trying to picture the person who is cooking dinner and being like, you know what this needs? A good tablespoon of whatever Taylor Sheridan is cooking up.
JH: He literally had Yellowstone characters hyping his mail-order steak company and spirits business on the show. Which speaks to his power and to his “you’ve got to be kidding me” level of leveraging his shows for his interests.
SZ: Kind of crazy. Imagine Fast Eddie in The Color of Money being like: “I’m going to hustle you at pool, but before I do, I’m going to down some Newman’s Own lemonade.” But yeah, I guess the Sheridan name is valuable in this cluttered age. Of course Ellison as a tech guy could say it’s all about the algo anyway — sort of the TikTok approach, not to make it about that, but, well. Whereas Universal might be a little more old school and say no the name still matters, not just in the town but to viewers. Clearly that motivated them on some of their other splashy deals in recent years – Christopher Nolan, for example.
JH: Which brings us to NBCUniversal. Are you surprised he ended up there? It’s not like that company is known for being big spenders either. And while I’m always down to watch Love Island or Below Deck, nobody gets excited about Peacock — which smartly snatched up Yellowstone streaming rights years ago, but on the drama side outside of a Poker Face here and there has been a dead zone since then. That said, I could also see Sheridan looking at this like: “I put Paramount+ on the map, watch me do the same thing again with Peacock.”
SZ: I definitely think it’s a little surprising, since just a few months ago after Duffers we all thought Ellison was going to be poacher and NBCU maybe one of the poachees. But I guess it’s personality-dependent. Also let’s not forget Ellison may well end up with Warner Bros., so he’ll have plenty of new deals for the content pipeline, while NBC might be looking at that and saying “we’ll need to compete with this new HBO-Paramount megalith.”
JH: We also can’t overestimate how much it might be personal, for both men. Ellison doesn’t like how much power and control Sheridan wields while Sheridan doesn’t like the way he’s been treated since Ellison took over. It’s very: “This streaming service ain’t big enough for the both of us.”
SZ: An idea that could meta-ishly also play out in a Taylor Sheridan show. OK last question. Three years from now, we’re having this conversation. Does Taylor Sheridan have more cultural impact, less, or about the same?
JH: It’s the more risky position — because when you’re on top, there is nowhere to go but down — but I would venture to say bigger. He will have a large stable of shows on Paramount+ and he will be launching lord knows how many for NBC and he’s got some feature film projects in the pipeline. I suspect he’s gotten at least a little better at delegating. That’s what he’s going to really have to master to pull this off. Like we all know he can make a show himself. But he can’t keep adding more to his plate without surrendering more control and helping other writers do their best. Like if his stuff only works if he’s super hands-on, there’s going to be a breaking point.
SZ: I’d say probably smaller, but maybe not dramatically so. He probably will get better at delegating but you could argue his strong influence is precisely what has made his shows so good; I don’t know that he’s demonstrated yet he can have all these protege bots doing it and maintain that quality. Also, while he obviously plays in other genres, the Western is his strong suit, and history tells us they tend to rise and fall. I kind of get why Ellison is gambling on the under.
JH: I understand the argument. But I also feel like there are certain creators people underestimate at their peril. Look at Dick Wolf. He’s been at this for four decades and people are still getting tattoos of his name. So you never know…
