Drop Everything and Read the Story of How Taylor Sheridan Sold Harrison Ford on '1923'
You wouldn’t know it, but Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone is the most-watched series on cable television. (At least, if the metric for pop-culture awareness awards-season praise or TikTok dances plucked straight from Netflix shows.) Recently, the premiere of a Yellowstone spinoff series, titled 1923, broke records for the Paramount Network—bringing in over 7.4 million viewers after just two days.
All we want to know is: how does Sheridan do it? According to the creator and writer, he just has the right stories. Along with Yellowstone, he’s released two spinoffs—1883 and 1923—and is currently working on even more. He has a Texas-based spinoff titled 6666 in development, as well as more limited series set in the 1940s and 1960s. On top of that, Sheridan is writing Mayor of Kingstown with Jeremy Renner and Tulsa King with Sylvester Stallone. Oh, you thought that was it? Nope. Sheridan is also behind the upcoming Lioness with Zoe Saldana, Bass Reeves with David Oyelowo, and Land Man with Billy Bob Thorton. Sheridan even has a “a show that no one knows much about,” he recently said in an interview with Deadline, that has “probably four of the biggest movie stars alive in it, and we’ve kept it quiet.”
In the same interview, Sheridan revealed that 1923 star Harrison Ford flew to his Texas ranch on his own plane—just so the creator could pitch good ol' Indy on the series. He even did the same for 1923's other megastar, Helen Mirren. And...we highly recommend you read Sheridan's account in full:
"Yeah. He flew down. I said, 'We’re going to do this thing together.' He goes, 'Can I read a script?' I said, 'You can when it’s written, but it ain’t written yet and you got to commit to it now. I need to know who I’m writing for. I’m done wondering who I’m writing for, and I have to go try to chase the person I had in my mind and I can’t get the person because they’re doing some fu*king Netflix show. I don’t do that shit anymore.'
'So, are you going to do it or are you going to watch Chris Cooper do the next great thing? What do you want to do?' I poured about two bottles of wine down him. He said yes. I got him on the plane as fast as I could, closed the deal and said, 'Send me the next one.' Then came Helen, and same thing. 'Have a glass of wine.'"
Easy as that, Taylor! As crazy as that all sounds, it’s hard to not see the appeal after watching the first episode of 1923. Harrison Ford, a man who is now 80 years old, is brandishing pistols and strutting around like a badass. Helen Mirren also gets to blast a man with a shotgun. Hell, even Yellowstone in a slowed-down fifth season is still filled with fun cowboy vibes. Absolutely none of the success is lost on Sheridan—a creator who now basically gets to treat Paramount+ as his own personal sandbox. "I’m the one that made the call to the [Paramount] Network," he boasted to Deadline, "which is probably the greatest call they ever got."
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