Yellowstone Creator Taylor Sheridan Embroiled in Explosive Copyright Theft Lawsuit
Writer Lauren J. Salkin has filed a lawsuit against Taylor Sheridan, alleging his hit series "Yellowstone" was stolen from her 2016 pitch, "Sovereign Nation." The suit claims specific plot elements, land development mechanisms, and even proposed actors were replicated, suggesting a strong inference of copying.
Screenwriter Lauren J. Salkin has initiated a lawsuit against acclaimed creator Taylor Sheridan, alleging that his blockbuster series “Yellowstone” was plagiarized from her 2016 pitch. The lawsuit, filed on Friday, also names 101 Studios, Paramount, and Elevate Entertainment as defendants. Representatives for Sheridan, 101 Studios, Paramount, and Elevate Entertainment have not yet provided a response to inquiries regarding the suit.
According to court documents obtained by Variety, Salkin claims she presented her own extensive Western drama, titled “Sovereign Nation,” to Sheridan’s management company, Elevate Entertainment, in 2016. Her pitch was reportedly rejected with the statement: “Taylor thanks you very much for your interest. Unfortunately, he’s unavailable for TV projects.”
Crucially, the lawsuit highlights the timeline of events, asserting that “Yellowstone” received its green light at Paramount mere months following Salkin’s rejection. The suit directly challenges the initial reason for her rejection, stating, “Sheridan, however, was not ‘unavailable for TV projects.’ Instead, he and others used Salkin’s copyrighted works to develop Yellowstone.” The first episode of “Yellowstone” subsequently aired on Paramount Network on June 20, 2018.
The legal filing meticulously details several “specific expressive choices” that “Yellowstone” allegedly appropriated from Salkin’s “Sovereign Nation.” These purportedly lifted elements include, but are not limited to, a tribal casino serving as the central hub of political and developmental power; a pivotal confrontation scene occurring in the tribal chairman’s casino office concerning expansion beyond reservation boundaries; the specific mechanisms of trust land, the absence of zoning restrictions, and a 99-year lease structure utilized as concrete means for that expansion; and the recurring deployment of master-plan imagery to vividly dramatize the intense struggle for territorial control.
Furthermore, Salkin’s legal team asserts that she “proposed” actors Danny Huston and Gil Birmingham for roles in “Sovereign Nation” within her pitch deck. Both actors were later cast in “Yellowstone” and, according to the suit, played “materially parallel structural roles.” Specifically, Birmingham portrayed the tribal political leader whose authority and development strategy were deeply intertwined with the casino, while Huston played the role of an outside development power broker who facilitated the political or commercial avenues for the aforementioned expansion.
The lawsuit concludes by emphasizing the striking similarities between the two works. It states, “When the works are objectively compared, the same coordinated design repeatedly appears: casino-centered institutions organize political power; the same unusual land-development mechanisms propel the conflict; parallel scenes perform the same dramatic functions; and the same actors appear in materially parallel roles. These are not merely convergences of a shared genre. Taken together with access and timing, they support a strong inference of copying.”