Phrasemaker

Taylor Sheridan, the creator behind Paramount’s Yellowstone franchise and its growing constellation of spinoffs, will exit the studio when his current commitments expire, signing a sweeping film and television deal with NBCUniversal.

A Two-Track Deal

According to Puck, Sheridan has been unhappy with Paramount’s new management and has finalized an nearly eight-year film pact at Universal that begins when his Paramount deal ends in March. In addition, a new five-year television overall will activate following the end of his current Paramount agreement in 2028, shifting Sheridan’s small-screen development exclusively to NBCU platforms, including Peacock and NBC.

As part of the transition, Sheridan’s production company, 101 Studios, is expected to move its output to Universal as rights windows open. Financial details were not disclosed, but sources describe the terms as competitive with top-tier Hollywood mega-deals.

Frustrations at Paramount

Sheridan’s exit follows months of quiet friction between the creator and Paramount’s newly installed leadership after David Ellison’s Skydance acquisition of the company in August. Several executives who had championed Sheridan’s work were either removed or moved aside in the subsequent reorganization, leaving the creative team that originally courted him diminished.

Budget scrutiny has also intensified. Incoming streaming chief Cindy Holland has pushed for tighter cost controls amid Paramount+ restructuring, and Sheridan’s productions—including Yellowstone prequels and the espionage drama Lioness—have regularly commanded premium budgets due to marquee casting and on-location shooting. The studio’s interest in attaching itself to an older Sheridan film script at Warner Bros. also reportedly caused friction.

Sheridan, whose shows consistently chart near the top of Nielsen rankings, was said to be unsettled by the signals coming from the reconfigured regime, even as Paramount continued to praise his creative output publicly.

Courting a Franchise Builder

Sheridan’s team quietly began taking meetings earlier this year, meeting with reps across streamers and legacy studios. NBCUniversal chair Donna Langley emerged as a compelling advocate. Langley, now overseeing both film and television, has cultivated a reputation as a destination for marquee filmmakers, counting long-running partnerships with Steven Spielberg, Jordan Peele and Christopher Nolan.

Sheridan, an Oscar-nominated screenwriter before his rise as a television powerhouse, was reportedly drawn to the notion of being treated as an elite filmmaker with latitude across mediums. Industry observers point to the precedent set by multi-decade NBCU relationships with figures like Dick Wolf and Lorne Michaels—another factor that appealed to Sheridan.

What Paramount Retains

Despite Sheridan’s departure, Paramount maintains long-term rights to the television series he delivers until 2028, including currently airing seasons of Tulsa King, Mayor of Kingstown and reality competition entry The Road. Over the next year, the studio also plans to roll out multiple Sheridan-originated projects already in production, including additional installments of Landman, the Yellowstone follow-ups Dutton Ranch and Y: Marshals, new episodes of Lioness and a New Orleans-set crime drama titled NOLA King.

The studio can continue building Yellowstone spinoffs going forward. But Sheridan’s creative fingerprints—particularly his thematic bent toward frontier mythology, institutional power and American identity—have become an identifiable brand for Paramount, leaving questions about its long-term replacement strategy.

Looking Ahead

Sheridan is expected to continue delivering the output required under his current Paramount agreement, with the new film partnership launching first in early 2026. His television move will activate two years later, marking a clean platform shift.

Paramount, meanwhile, faces the prospect of concluding a decade-defining creative era just as its parent company navigates layoffs, restructuring and streaming recalibration.

For Sheridan, the next chapter offers an opportunity to expand beyond the frontier-adjacent stories that built his name—while once again becoming a very large fish in a carefully chosen pond.