Donna Langley Explains How She Lured Taylor Sheridan to NBCUniversal

NBCUniversal Entertainment chair Donna Langley says she won "Yellowstone" creator Taylor Sheridan away from Paramount after a decade at the studio by leading with film — not television.

Speaking at Bloomberg's Screentime event on Thursday afternoon, Langley said her pursuit of Sheridan began after she "saw an opportunity" created by "disruption and instability" at Paramount. She never named the turmoil explicitly, but her comments point to the turbulent yearlong merger process between Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. News of Sheridan's NBCUniversal deal broke in late October 2025, only months before David Ellison emerged victorious over Netflix in the battle for Warner Bros.

"There's just a moment to kind of look around the marketplace and see if there's a competitive advantage," Langley said. "But really, where I started talking to Taylor was about film, because I knew that he had a film deal at Paramount, but it was a first-look deal. Didn't have as many teeth to it as his television deal. That's how it started, and then we just got to talking and one thing led to another."

The structure of the deal reflects that film-first approach. The film component of Sheridan's NBCUniversal pact takes effect in 2026. The television component follows in 2028, after he fulfills his contractual obligations to Paramount.

Langley's strategy exploited a gap in Sheridan's Paramount arrangement. His television deal there carried far more weight than his first-look film agreement — an imbalance the NBCUniversal chair identified and converted into a broader overall deal spanning both mediums.

Sheridan's career makes the pitch logical. He broke out as a screenwriter for the big screen, writing "Sicario," "Hell or High Water" and "Wind River." He shifted to television in 2018 with "Yellowstone," the Western drama that became the foundation of a Paramount empire. The series has spawned spinoffs including "1923," "The Madison" and "Dutton Ranch." He also created "Lioness," "Marshals," "Landman" and "Mayor of Kingstown."

Cinema remains in his near-term plans regardless of the studio switch. Sheridan wrote the scripts for Paramount's upcoming "Call of Duty Movie" and "Sicario 3," meaning his return to features will premiere under his old studio even as his new long-term home takes shape at NBCUniversal.