Yellowstone co-creator Taylor Sheridan is facing a lawsuit over his flagship show, alleging he stole the idea.
TV producer and writer Lauren J. Salkin says she pitched Sheridan a show called Sovereign Nation back in 2016.
She alleges her pitch – which didn’t progress – is very similar to Yellowstone, including plot details and some of the actors cast.
Let’s unpack.
The show
Since its 2018 premiere, Yellowstone has been viewed by millions around the world.
It centres on the Dutton family, owners of the Yellowstone ranch: the largest ranch in the state of Montana that’s still all in one piece, i.e. hasn’t been broken up by sales over the years.
Kevin Costner won a Golden Globe in 2023 for his portrayal of John Dutton, the Yellowstone patriarch who tries to manage his adult children, with whom he has a love-hate relationship.
Much of the drama revolves around the Duttons’ efforts to hold on to their piece of land, fighting off advances from property developers, an investment firm, and the neighbouring Native American group and lands.
It’s essentially a soap opera about cowboys and land and if your children can be trusted to carry on your legacy – Succession, with horses.
Yellowstone has inspired spin-offs including 1883, 1923, Marshals, and most recently, ratings juggernaut Dutton Ranch.
The lawsuit
Before we go on, there are two more quick bits of context you need to understand the lawsuit.
Reservations are pieces of land belonging to Native American groups, or tribes, secured through treaties and past government allotments.
Their history is rooted in colonial dispossession and forced displacements.
Today, Native American tribes hold a level of sovereignty over their lands, and many have run casinos on their reservations since the 1970s as a way of making money for residents.
When these casinos are on recognised Native American land, governments are generally not able to tax their profits, and they can be run in states where gambling is otherwise illegal.
According to Lauren J. Salkin’s court filing, she spent “more than a decade” developing an idea for a show called Sovereign Nation, set to focus on the power struggles over a reservation’s land and casinos.
Salkin copyrighted the idea in 2010, and by 2016-17 had begun shopping it around to different Hollywood companies and studios, including HBO and Elevate, which then managed Sheridan.
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Salkin says she asked Elevate if Sheridan would write for the show.
At the time, Sheridan, previously an actor, was making a name for himself as a screenwriter with three films: Sicario (2015), Hell or High Water (2016), for which he scored an Oscar nomination, and Wind River (2017), which he directed.
The filing says Salkin pitched Sovereign Nation to Elevate in November 2016.
Elevate responded in February 2017, saying while Sheridan “thanks you very much for your interest,” he would not become a writer for Sovereign Nation because he wasn’t available “for TV projects.”
Salkin continued to pitch the show, including to HBO.
At the time (late 2016-early 2017), according to the court filing and magazine profiles of Sheridan, HBO was considering picking up Yellowstone as a series, but ultimately passed.
Paramount picked it up in May 2017, and Yellowstone premiered the following year, at which point Salkin says she “recognised her own work.”
Salkin also alleges that in September 2022, an HBO executive told her the reason Yellowstone didn’t proceed at that company was because when he saw Sheridan’s pitch, he recognised similarities to her work, and “terminated Sheridan’s project”.
Alleged similarities
Salkin alleges Yellowstone uses several of the same plot points and character types as her pitch for Sovereign Nation: “a brilliant but volatile strategist driving the family’s political and financial maneuvering; an estranged son whose divided loyalties place him in line for succession; a tribal chairman whose authority runs through the casino; an enforcer who carries out extra-legal acts on the leadership’s behalf; and a corporate-political antagonist advancing competing development interests.”
Salkin alleges her pitch deck proposed specific actors for key roles: Danny Huston as a “corrupt political operator who supplies the permits, zoning access, and political pathways that enable the tribal development agenda,” and Gil Birmingham as the Tribal Chairman in charge of the reservation casinos.
Both actors appear on Yellowstone – Huston as a developer and Birmingham as the Native American chief in charge of the reservation casinos.
Sheridan
While Sheridan has yet to respond publicly to the allegations, he has spoken about the process of developing Yellowstone to The Atlantic (in 2022) and The Hollywood Reporter (2023).
The Atlantic profile says Sheridan had spent “some years” trying to set up Yellowstone at HBO before an executive named David Glasser helped him get the rights back, allowing him to pitch it – this time successfully – to Paramount in “early 2017”.
The Hollywood Reporter profile says Sheridan originally developed the idea for Yellowstone as a movie, akin to The Godfather, but it “ended up in series development at HBO” under an executive called Michael Lombardo, who left HBO in May 2016.
Sheridan told The Hollywood Reporter that Lombardo’s “last act before [HBO] fired him was to give me the [Yellowstone] script back,” and that he (Sheridan) then shopped it around until it landed at Paramount.
Salkin is seeking a jury trial, so we may find out more of Sheridan’s perspective if the case goes to court.
