Taylor Sheridan Accused of Stealing ‘Yellowstone’ Idea From Writer’s 2016 Pitch In Copyright Lawsuit
A writer who says she spent more than a decade developing a television series about tribal power, land disputes and casino-backed development is accusing Taylor Sheridan of taking elements from her project and using them to create his enormously successful series Yellowstone.
Lauren J. Salkin makes the allegations in a new copyright infringement lawsuit obtained by The Independent, which also names 101 Studios, Paramount Global and NBCUniversal as defendants.
At the center of the complaint is Sovereign Nation, a television project Salkin says she spent more than 10 years developing before submitting it to Sheridan’s representatives in late 2016.
Her submission to Sheridan’s representatives at Elevate Entertainment included a completed pilot script, a series bible and a pitch deck.
The series was built around “tribal governance, casino-driven economic power, and a modern war over land and development,” according to the lawsuit.
The complaint alleges that Sheridan and the other defendants later incorporated several unusually specific elements from that concept into his neo-Western hit, rather than merely relying on broader themes commonly associated with Westerns or stories about property disputes.
“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.”
Among the alleged similarities, Salkin’s attorneys point to the central role played by a tribal casino, as well as the way both projects depict land development and expansion beyond reservation boundaries.
The lawsuit claims Yellowstone “included specific expressive choices already embodied” in Sovereign Nation.
Those alleged overlaps include: “A tribal casino functioning as the institutional center of political and development power; a signature confrontation staged in the tribal chairman’s casino office over expansion beyond reservation boundaries; the use of trust land, the absence of zoning restrictions, and a 99-year lease structure as the concrete mechanism for that expansion; and recurring master-plan imagery deployed to dramatize the struggle for territorial control.”
Salkin’s attorneys also point to two actors who appeared in her pitch materials: Danny Huston and Gil Birmingham.
Both men ultimately joined the cast of Yellowstone, and the lawsuit argues they were placed in “materially parallel structural roles” to those envisioned in Salkin’s proposed series.
“Birmingham as the tribal political leader whose authority and development strategy run through the casino, and Huston as the outside development power broker who supplies the political or commercial path for that expansion,” the complaint states.
Birmingham played Thomas Rainwater, chairman of the Confederated Tribes of Broken Rock, throughout Yellowstone. Huston appeared as real estate developer Dan Jenkins, an early antagonist whose business interests brought him into conflict with the Dutton family.
Sheridan, however, had worked with Birmingham before Salkin submitted her project. Birmingham appeared in Hell or High Water, the 2016 film written by Sheridan, while Wind River — another Sheridan project featuring Birmingham — was filmed in March and April 2016, months before Salkin says she sent her materials to Elevate Entertainment.
Salkin says she sent Sovereign Nation to Sheridan’s representatives in late 2016, only to receive a rejection several months later.
“Taylor thanks you very much for your interest. Unfortunately, he’s unavailable for TV projects,” the response from Sheridan’s representatives read, according to the lawsuit.
Salkin received that message in February 2017.
Only months later, Paramount gave Yellowstone the green light. The series eventually premiered on June 20, 2018.
The complaint further alleges that someone outside Sheridan’s circle independently noticed similarities between the two projects.
According to Salkin’s attorneys, a senior HBO television executive who had previously reviewed materials connected to Sovereign Nation later told Salkin that he recognized similarities when he encountered Yellowstone.
The lawsuit says the unnamed executive rejected Sheridan’s show for that reason.
Sheridan has offered his own account of the project’s origins. In a 2023 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, he said he initially pitched the idea to HBO as a movie he described as “The Godfather in Montana” before it developed into the television series that ultimately aired on Paramount Network.
Yellowstone became one of the most commercially significant television dramas of the past decade.
The series starred Kevin Costner as ranch patriarch John Dutton, whose family controls an enormous Montana cattle ranch that becomes the focus of repeated conflicts involving developers, Indigenous tribes, government officials and other powerful interests.
Costner won a Golden Globe for his performance as Dutton.
Much of the show’s central tension revolves around who has the right to control the land surrounding the Dutton ranch — and how far each competing group is willing to go to protect or expand its territory.
The drama ran for five seasons between 2018 and 2024 and became a ratings phenomenon, breaking cable television records while transforming Sheridan into one of the television industry’s most prolific creators.
Its success also gave rise to a sprawling franchise, with multiple prequels, spinoffs and additional projects expanding the fictional world surrounding the Dutton family.
Four spinoffs have been released so far, and three more are in development, according to Yahoo News.
That success is a major component of Salkin’s lawsuit.
She is seeking damages and a share of profits connected to the alleged infringement. The complaint also seeks injunctive relief aimed at preventing any future use of material she claims was taken from Sovereign Nation.
Salkin has also requested a jury trial, according to HollywoodLife.
Her attorney, Paul B. Lackey, characterized the dispute as a case of an individual writer confronting some of the most powerful figures and companies in the entertainment industry.
“This is a classic David-versus-Goliath situation,” Lackey told The Hollywood Reporter.
“She spent years putting together the specific and multi-layered framework for a story that has become the biggest streaming success of all time. She has watched the vast commercial success of this story that was stolen from her and decided that enough was enough. We will do everything in our power to get her justice.”
Lackey also told Yahoo News that “it was not an easy decision for an individual screenwriter to decide to take on the titans of the entertainment industry.”
“She has watched the exploitation of her hard work for too long and decided that enough was enough. We will now hold them accountable.”
Moumita Basuroychowdhury is a Contributing Reporter at The National Digest. After earning an economics degree at Cornell University, she moved to NYC to pursue her MFA in creative writing. She enjoys reporting on science, business and culture news. You can reach her at moumita.b@thenationaldigest.com.