Taylor Sheridan, photographed for The Hollywood Reporter's cover in 2023. Photographed by Emerson Miller Share on Facebook Share on X Share to Flipboard Send an Email Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Print the Article Post a Comment 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? Related Stories Business Taylor Sheridan's Manifest Destiny Is NBCUniversal, But Paramount Keeps the (Dutton) Ranch TV 'Landman' Drops Explosive Season 2 Trailers, Revealing Sam Elliott Role 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 ser