Yellowstone mastermind Taylor Sheridan wasn’t content with a mere handful of spinoffs from the Kevin Costner-starring series. Nope, he’s essentially the reigning king of Paramount+ with several additional series, including Tulsa King, which flew high with Sylvester Stallone and will live on for a second season. There’s also the Jeremy Renner-starring The Mayor Of Kingstown, which shall return for a third round after the first Lawmen: Bass Reeves season wound down last year.
Elsewhere, Sheridan and 1883 cast member Billy Bob Thornton have collaborated to bring another facet of the American dream to life onscreen. In Land Man, Texas Tea should take center stage as a character, too, because the off-and-on oil booms have been integral to American identity. Let’s chat about where this series will take the next Sheridan protagonist.
Plot
Thornton previously embodied a lawman, U.S. Marshal Jim Courtright, for Sheridan, but the Bad Santa leading man now portrays a wheeling and dealing oil company crisis manager, Tommy Norris. The actor previously revealed that this show “is about the world of the oil business that we generally don’t see” while paying tribute to Sheridan’s writing on the series. The adoration must be mutual, given that Sheridan developed the show with Thornton in mind.
The series will take inspiration from the popular Boomtown podcast, but given that Sheridan is a prolific writer, you can expect this to be anything but a straightforward retelling. Additionally, we don’t know if we can expect a 2020s-set series or a slightly earlier take since Sheridan departed from choosing a year-based title for this show. Hey, a little mystery can be good, and the show’s description does tell us that this “drama is set in the proverbial boomtowns of West Texas and described as a modern-day tale of fortune seeking in the world of oil rigs.” Furthermore, we can expect “an upstairs/downstairs story of roughnecks and wildcat billionaires fueling a boom so big, it’s reshaping our climate, our economy and our geopolitics.”
Cast
Not only will Tommy Norris (Thornton) have a high-pressure professional life, but his personal life knows complication, too. His ex-wife, Angela, will be portrayed by Ali Larter. Their children, Ainsley and Cooper, will be picked up by Michelle Randolph (1923) and Jacob Lofland, respectively, with the latter diving into the oil and gas scene, just like dad.
Casting directors are hard at work looking for athletes for background roles in college-set scenes at TCU, and Legacy Casting previously looked to cast real-life oil and gas workers for field-work scenes that are filming in North and West Texas. There’s been no word on whether Taylor Sheridan’s own Texas properties will serve as settings for this show, but an urban landscape was previously featured in a Paramount+ promo clip.
Release Date
Land Man production is ongoing with filming taking place in early-to-mid 2024. So there’s a decent chance that this show will materialize before Yellowstone‘s final episodes (which are filming in late 2024) make it to air.
Trailer
No teaser or trailer has materialized yet, but Sheridan has gone on record to confirm that this show, like his other works, will paint the portrait of “a forgotten part of the American experience.” He’s like the Darren Star of the Lone Star State of TV.
