Taylor Sheridan seemed to have every intention of staying at Paramount after his overall deal came to an end. After all, the network was home to all eight of his widely watched scripted originals, and his 101 Studios and Paramount just teamed on a new production facility in Texas, where most of his shows are shot. So what spurred him to leave the network behind in favor of NBCUniversal?
An offer for a film and TV deal worth $1 billion over eight years from Donna Langley didn’t hurt. But Sheridan’s new bosses — Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison and Chair of Direct-to-Consumer Cindy Holland — also started butting into the megaproducer’s creative process, haggling over his budgets, giving him notes and even passing on a new series, an individual with knowledge of the deal told TheWrap.
And the one thing you don’t give this cowboy is notes.
This deal won’t happen overnight. While Sheridan’s film deal with Paramount is up in March, his TV deal runs through 2028. Either way, Paramount just lost one of their most-watched and consistent creators.
“Ellison took his eye off the ball,” an insider familiar with the negotiations told TheWrap, adding that while Holland started building out her slate of Paramount TV shows, Sheridan was taking meetings ahead of his film deal’s expiration. That’s when NBCUniversal Chairman Donna Langley started wooing Sheridan not just for film, but for TV as well.
To the public, Sheridan’s relationship with Ellison appeared to be a pleasant one. Ellison called the prolific TV creator a “singular genius” in August after closing his $8 billion acquisition, adding that he wanted Sheridan to “call Paramount his home for as long as he wants to be telling stories.” Sheridan’s work pretty much single-handedly anchors Paramount+ with thrillers and Westerns as well as “Yellowstone” spinoffs starring the likes of Jeremy Renner, Nicole Kidman and Sylvester Stallone, with his shows regularly topping Nielsen’s charts and ranking among the top Paramount+ originals.
But behind closed doors, it appeared to members of Sheridan’s camp that the new Paramount team was “phoning it in” when it came to appeasing Sheridan after the Skydance deal closed. The individual with knowledge said that Holland, a Netflix alum and tastemaker who’s credited with curating the early critically acclaimed days of the platform, and her team began giving Sheridan notes and arguing over the budget of “Lioness,” something the TV creator didn’t have to deal with during the previous regime. He enjoyed a close and far freer relationship with now-departed Paramount Co-CEO Chris McCarthy
Sheridan was also upset at Paramount for giving a straight-to-series order to “Discretion,” an upcoming legal thriller from A24 starring Nicole Kidman, without giving him a heads-up that his “Lioness” star would now have another show to fit into her busy schedule.
The new Paramount regime even passed on a new show from Sheridan — “The Correspondent” — a couple of months ago, the individual said.
The grievances began to pile up, all the while he was having meetings about a new film deal. Both Warner Bros. Discovery President and CEO David Zaslav and Langley traveled to Texas to meet with Sheridan, but it was Langley who ultimately sealed the deal by pointing to Universal’s stable of talent like Christopher Nolan, Jordan Peele, Chris Meledandri and, notably, “Law & Order” mastermind Dick Wolf, whose herculean output is second only to Sheridan’s.
Ellison’s vision for Paramount+ is, in a word, bigger. “We’re going to significantly scale the amount of content that we are producing on streaming services as well as at our film studio,” the CEO told reporters in August.
With more content output, the scrutinizing of Sheridan’s budgets became more severe. His shows reportedly cost Paramount over $500 million annually under the previous regime, per the Wall Street Journal, and new leadership has been looking for ways to exceed $2 billion in merger-related cost savings, which thus far include 1,000 layoffs coming on Wednesday (and more to come), a review of its real estate portfolio and selling off non-core assets.
As Sheridan’s discussions with suitors over a new film deal continued, Langley asked about his plans for his TV future after 2028. Then the $1 billion deal materialized, which closed a couple of weeks ago, according to two individuals with knowledge.
Langley got her man. And as Paramount looks ahead to revitalizing its streaming service, it will have to do so without its content anchor of the last decade.
“You don’t get rid of your workhorse,” an industry veteran at a rival company told TheWrap of Paramount’s loss.
“At the end of the day, they left him out there,” the individual with knowledge said. “Cindy wasn’t focused on him.”
Representatives for Paramount, NBCUniversal and Sheridan declined to comment for this story.
The cost for Paramount
Sheridan’s upcoming departure is a significant creative loss for Ellison and Holland as they look to continue to scale Paramount+, which has a total of 77.7 million subscribers and reported a profit of $157 million in the second quarter. (Paramount reports its third-quarter results in less than two weeks.)
Sheridan isn’t just prolific; he’s a significant moneymaker for Paramount’s streaming service. Since “Mayor of Kingstown” premiered in 2021, the megaproducer’s shows have netted Paramount+ an estimated $263 million in subscriber revenue in the U.S. and Canada, according to Parrot Analytics’ Streaming Economics model.
“Sheridan’s shows were a recurring revenue engine driving billions in lifetime subscriber value for Paramount+. Losing him won’t dent next quarter’s earnings, but it weakens Paramount’s long-term enterprise value story by shrinking its pipeline of premium IP,” former CBS programming and development executive Aaron Meyerson told TheWrap. “NBCUniversal didn’t just sign a showrunner — it acquired future cash flow, high [average revenue per user], audience loyalty and scalable IP. Sheridan is a content multiplier — he builds universes, not shows.”
When one longtime Paramount veteran read the news Sheridan was leaving the company, they were “shocked.” “I don’t know how Paramount+ is going to keep going when he’s done with his stuff,” the veteran said. “As far as scripted shows, they don’t really have anything else.”
At a time when Netflix regularly dominates Nielsen’s weekly Top 10 lists, Sheridan’s shows often land on the coveted most-watched list. From June of 2024 to February of this year, Sheridan released five shows, all of which were widely watched on the streaming platform: “Mayor of Kingstown” Season 3, “Tulsa King” Season 2, “Lioness” Season 2, “Landman” Season 1 and “1923” Season 2. “Landman” was consistently the most-watched of these series, averaging 919 million minutes watched during the 10 weeks it appeared on Nielsen’s streaming lists. But on the week of Dec. 2, three Sheridan shows — “Landman,” “Lioness” and “Tulsa King” — accounted for a total of 1.8 billion minutes streamed.
That doesn’t account for Sheridan’s biggest hit of all, “Yellowstone.” Despite the fact that the series lived on the cable channel Paramount Network, the Western family drama was consistently regarded as one of the most popular shows on television during its five season run. Its finale, which was broadcast on several of Paramount’s cable networks as well as CBS, drew 11.4 million views. As a result of a deal struck in 2020, “Yellowstone” streams on Peacock, and is notably the only one of Sheridan’s shows that isn’t available on Paramount+.
There are plenty of notable talents in Hollywood similar to Sheridan. Ryan Murphy and Shonda Rhimes, for example, have proven track records of delivering hit after hit for their networks. But what makes Sheridan distinct is that unlike other showrunners who often rely on a larger team to actually write their shows, Sheridan is by all accounts a singular force. That means once he leaves Paramount in 2028, chances are slim there will be an experienced producer from the Sheridan universe able to take up the mantle for all of these shows — or the ones still running when that time comes.
“It’s not like you’re a part of a whole writing team of people,” Helen Mirren, star of “1923,” previously told TheWrap. “It’s one man’s vision and voice, which is so distinctive and so beautifully constructed.”
Still, there will be plenty of Sheridan shows to go around through 2028. “Mayor of Kingstown” and “Tulsa King” are currently airing new episodes on Paramount+, while new seasons of “Landman” and “Lioness” are currently in production. There’s also a “Tulsa King” spinoff, titled “NOLA King” and starring Samuel L. Jackson, in the works, as well as five announced “Yellowstone” spinoffs — “Y: Marshals,” “The Madison,” “The Dutton Ranch,” “1944” and “6666.” The superproducer is also involved in the new CBS singing competition “The Road,” which is currently airing its first season.
And despite losing Sheridan, Paramount has made major moves in the weeks since closing its merger, from creative talent deals with Will Smith, James Mangold and “Stranger Things” creators The Duffer Brothers to spending big on media rights for the UFC and Zuffa Boxing as well as greenlighting new Paramount+ series “9/12” starring Jeremy Strong and the aforementioned legal thriller “Discretion” starring Kidman and Elle Fanning. It also is aggressively bidding to acquire all of Warner Bros. Discovery — another significant shift for the media landscape if successful that would give Paramount more scale and an arsenal of content to better compete with Netflix and Disney.
“There’s no question that Paramount+ is the Taylor Sheridan network at the moment, but the new owners have shown that they’re not afraid to spend on IP,” Hub Entertainment Research founder Jon Giegengack told TheWrap.
While acknowledging that Sheridan’s shows like “Yellowstone” have been a major subscription driver and that the creator himself has become a “recognizable quantity” for consumers, Giegengack argued that “IP is really the thing that draws people in” and praised Ellison’s move to greenlight a film adaptation of the video game franchise “Call of Duty.”
“They want to be investing in IP that has a community and crosses multiple mediums,” he said. “They have enough runway to cushion the impact and maybe reduce it in two years.”
Paramount’s rocky relationship with talent
Despite the deals with Smith, the Duffers and Mangold, Ellison has had a much rockier relationship with Paramount’s current roster of creative talent.
Ellison reached a new $1.5 billion, five-year streaming deal with “South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, though the previous regime was prepared to offer Parker and Stone a lengthier contract before Ellison stepped in. The pair publicly blamed Skydance’s “s–tshow” merger with Paramount for delaying its Season 27 premiere and “f–king up” the long-running adult animated series.
There’s also the matter of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” which is ending in May 2026. Though Skydance has maintained it was not involved in the decision to cancel Colbert, that hasn’t stopped public accusations that the late night host’s axing was done to appease President Donald Trump and secure regulatory approval from the Federal Communications Commission. And Comedy Central’s other powerhouse — “The Daily Show” — is also on uncertain footing. This past weekend Jon Stewart told New Yorker editor David Remnick he’s actively working on a contract extension as his deal is set to expire in December.
Despite the press releases and reports declaring the Ellison regime as talent-friendly, the Paramount veteran who spoke to TheWrap believes these messy negotiations have hurt the company’s reputation within Hollywood.
“Everyone knows how much money [David’s dad, Larry Ellison] has and knows he’s a Trump supporter. I definitely think all of that factors in,” the veteran said, pointing to a legacy Paramount show like “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” a series that has a strong cult following and has won 24 Emmys, as something the new regime may not be inclined to greenlight. “The new regime coming in is not inclusive. They’re all very white, straight, mostly male. For talent, representation matters, and I think it’s definitely going to be a key thing.”
By losing Sheridan, Meyerson argued that Paramount+ risks “slipping further into commodity content,” resulting in higher subscriber acquisition costs, lower pricing power, declining subscriber lifetime value and a weaker negotiating position in an era where bundling is increasingly important.
“Paramount+ is franchise-light so they will be over-reliant on sports and licensed content, both of which are not company owned and are expensive,” he continued. “Perception-wise, it makes Paramount look like it is more concerned with cost cutting than valuing its star talent.”
That perception would certainly fit with how Paramount lost Sheridan. All eyes will be on what deals they make next, and whether Holland’s new slate of shows can reach the consistent highs of Sheridan’s spate of series. Yee-haw.
Sharon Waxman contributed reporting to this story.
