Paramount’s merger with Skydance is one that has brought a lot of questions to Hollywood. Though it’s still unclear what it will mean in the grand scheme of things moving forward, especially as they’ve already attempted to make a bid for Warner Bros., but the picture is starting to form. The powers that be at Paramount have made big moves to lock down key creatives to ensure the future of their programming, signing the creators of South Park to a new deal worth over a billion dollars, plus bringing on Stranger Things creators, the Duffer brothers, from their deal at Netflix. Now, news of a major departure from Paramount has arrived which should have current Paramount+ subscribers raising their eyebrows has made its way online.
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According to Puck, Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan is planning to leave Paramount when his film and TV deals with the company expire. After that, though, Sheridan will instead take his talents across town to NBCUniversal. There is a glimmer of hope for fans of Sheridan’s TV shows on the streaming platform, at least for the time being, but it poses a major problem for the newly formed Paramount Skydance Corporation and what their future content plans even look like.
Paramount Is Losing Its Biggest Creative Force
News of Sheridan departing Paramount is a seismic shift in Hollywood, and one that could change the direction of Paramount+ for years to come. Though the Sheridan-created Yellowstone has come to an end, spinoffs of the series, including prequels like 1883 and 1923, and the upcoming contemporary series, Y: Marshals, became a major focal point of Paramount+ programming since Peacock managed to snag the streaming rights to the original Kevin Costner-led series. Paramount’s dependence on Sheridan to create new and exciting shows wasn’t limited to anything Yellowstone adjacent, though, as he has also created or co-created other major hits like Mayor of Kingstown, Tulsa King, Landman, and Lioness. In short, a large percentage of Paramount+ shows all stemmed from one man, and now he’s moving on.
There is a glimmer of good news for fans of these shows, however, and it’s that Sheridan remains under his television contract with Paramount until 2028, meaning he will continue to work on the shows that are already on the air with new seasons of many set to arrive over the course of the next year. Furthermore, once that deal wraps in a few years and Sheridan’s talents move to NBCUniversal, the shows themselves will obviously remain with Paramount. The rights to further adventures within Yellowstone and every other Sheridan-created series will still be at their disposal, but it presents a unique question: will audiences still be interested if the main creative force isn’t present?
One could argue that it won’t matter to most of the viewers who the person behind the camera is, provided the people in front of it don’t change, but it’s unclear if that talent will remain committed to shows that no longer have Sheridan involved. The news also brings up an underlying uncertainty of what Paramount+ even is without Sheridan’s TV shows populating its content boxes. When taking scripted programming into account, a majority of them come from Sheridan in some form, with larger tentpoles making up most of the rest. In the end, Paramount may have to lean on these even more as they move forward, meaning more Star Trek and NCIS spinoffs and TV show reboots of classic movies like Fatal Attraction and Sexy Beast. In the present moment, Paramount+ hasn’t changed much, but in the next few years it could look totally different.
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