The hit-making Taylor Sheridan is taking his talents to NBCUniversal.
It’s no secret that the Yellowstone creator is one of the most sought after minds in Hollywood. Because it seems as though everything he touches turns to gold (or at least brings in massive ratings), there’s not an entertainment executive out there that doesn’t want a cut of the Taylor Sheridan pie.
Once Sheridan gave up his acting career and focused on writing, directing and creating, he became one of the biggest names in all three of those avenues. Yellowstone was the show that really launched him into the stratosphere, and when it’s second season averaged 6.3 million viewers, it easily became one of the top shows on cable… and only continued to succeed and grow from there.
Interestingly enough, Paramount lost a staggering $50 million on Yellowstone’s sophomore season. That’s just because it costs so much to create Taylor Sheridan shows (1883 and 1923 cost almost $20 million an episode). In fact, Paramount has likely spent more than $1 billion producing Sheridan’s shows both inside and outside of the Yellowstone universe.
But that return on investment has paid dividends. Bloomberg reported that Sheridan’s shows have generated just shy of $3 billion in sales, and the loyal audience of anything that the show runner does has spent more than $450 million on digital downloads and DVDs alone. The Sheridan universe of shows (feel like we can call it that) has raked in $700 million in profits.
Not only has it been rather financially rewarding… it’s basically held up an entire streaming service. Paramount+ features a collection of movies and TV shows to watch, but where the streaming service has really found it’s place is simply being the home of Taylor Sheridan’s Paramount+ originals, such as:
-The Last Cowboy
-Finestkind
-Mayor of Kingstown
-1883 (Yellowstone spinoff)
-1923 (Yellowstone spinoff)
-Lawmen: Bass Reeves (Yellowstone spinoff)
-Tulsa King
-Lioness
-Landman
In reality, you could attribute Paramount+’s success entirely to Taylor Sheridan. He’s managed to create shows that fans of television have no other choice but to seek out. Paramount Skydance CEO realized just how valuable Sheridan is to his company’s streaming service, and said this about Taylor Sheridan’s future with the Paramount Skydance Corporation:
“He is literally a singular genius with a perfect track record. If we can make this his home as long as he wants to tell stories, we want to do that.”
Well… they’ll be his home until the end of 2028. NBCUniversal will be snatching away the creator, writer and director at the beginning of 2029, according to Deadline.
Sheridan has struck up a five-year deal with NBCUniversal that will start on January 1, 2029. NBCUniversal will be trusting the entertainment genius to making film and television for their linear and streaming platforms. David Glasser, a close collaborator of Sheridan’s, will also be moving to NBCUniversal… as will Glasser’s 101 Studios.
And it’s important to note that Taylor Sheridan already has some ties to the world of NBC. You probably already know that his flagship series Yellowstone streams exclusively on Peacock: NBC’s streaming service. The show was released on Paramount, but it was originally a deal with NBCUniversal… so NBC still has the rights to Yellowstone.
There’s no sense of trying to strike a deal to bring that over to Paramount now that Taylor Sheridan will be making the move over to NBCUniversal in a couple of years. It undoubtedly seems like a devastating loss for Paramount +, who in the past couple months referred to Sheridan as one of their top creative minds. I guess they’ll try to get the most out of him before he makes the move in 2029…
