Taylor Sheridan’s most famous show is undoubtedly Yellowstone, but a new lawsuit claims he stole the idea from writer Lauren J. Salkin’s 2016 pitch. According to the lawsuit, filed in the District Court for the Central District of California on Friday, August 21, Salkin spent more than a decade creating a series named Sovereign Nation. The show is described as a “dramatic television series centered on tribal governance, casino-driven economic power, and a modern war over land and development.” After copyrighting started in 2010 and a specific pilot was registered in 2016, Salkin’s team allegedly sent the pitch to Sheridan’s management firm, Elevate Entertainment, in February 2017. The complaint claims Salkin later received the following response: “Taylor thanks you very much for your interest. Unfortunately, he’s unavailable for TV projects.” Not long after that, Paramount ordered Sheridan’s Yellowstone, which premiered in June 2018 and went on to spawn a sprawling TV universe. The lawsuit names Sheridan, Elevate Entertainment, Paramount and NBCUniversal among its defendants. Of course, the idea of a modern Western centred around powerful families, Native American land and territorial disputes isn’t something one writer can simply own. But Salkin’s lawsuit claims there are some far more notable similarities between the two. The alleged similarities between Yellowstone and Sovereign Nation Credit: Paramount+ According to the complaint, both stories place a Native American casino at the centre of a battle for political power, money and control over the surrounding land. Salkin claims the similarities become much more specific than that. The lawsuit alleges both Yellowstone and Sovereign Nation feature a key confrontation inside a tribal chairman’s casino office over plans to expand development beyond reservation boundaries. In Yellowstone, this alleged parallel centres on Thomas Rainwater and the Broken Rock casino, as Rainwater’s ambitions for the surrounding land gets caught up with developer Dan Jenkins’ plans and their shared conflict with John Dutton. There are more details the complaint explicitly says appear in both works: the use of trust land, the absence of zoning restrictions and a 99-year lease structure as the concrete mechanism for that expansion. It also lists recurring master-plan imagery that is used to dramatise the battle for territorial control. Salkin claims HBO noticed the similarities before Yellowstone even aired Credit: Paramount+ But the alleged similarities aren’t limited to the scripts. According to the complaint, the original Sovereign Nation pitch deck named Danny Huston and Gil Birmingham among the actors she envisioned for the project. Both subsequently landed significant roles in Yellowstone as Dan Jenkins and Chief Thomas Rainwater respectively, in what’s described as “materially parallel structural roles” to Salkin’s vision. Salkin even claims that she met with a top HBO TV executive over Sovereign Nation, who said they rejected Sheridan’s Yellowstone pitch in spring 2017 due to the similarities to her own show. As per the filing, Salkin’s lawyers argue, “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.” Salkin is seeking damages, including profits she claims were made from the alleged infringement, as well as a court order preventing further use of her copyrighted work. Film Shrine has contacted Sheridan, 101 Studios, Paramount and Elevate Entertainment for comment. For all the latest film and TV updates and hot takes, like our Facebook page. Featured image credit: Paramount+ Post navigation Next storyPrevious story
