Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone Hit With Plagiarism Lawsuit 10 Years After HBO Rejection

Television titan Taylor Sheridan, entertainment powerhouse Paramount, and NBCUniversal have been hit with an explosive copyright infringement lawsuit alleging that the monumental Western hit Yellowstone was stolen from a rival pitch. According to the legal filing, Lauren J. Salkin submitted her pilot and pitch deck to Sheridan’s team between 2016 and 2017, only to be rejected before Yellowstone was fast-tracked into development (via TMZ).

Filed in California federal court by entertainment journalist and screenwriter Lauren J. Salkin, the complaint alleges that Sheridan lifted the foundational narrative, structural themes, and core creative choices from her original project, Sovereign Nation. She also claimed that she met a senior HBO executive for her project, who had rejected Sheridan’s Yellowstone pitch back in 2017 because of its similarities to her work (via TheWrap).

Taylor Sheridan and Paramount Sued Over Yellowstone‘s Original Pitch

Taylor Sheridan/ Credit: CBS Broadcasting

According to the lawsuit, Salkin initially shared her materials for Sovereign Nation with Sheridan’s management at Elevate Entertainment. The agency formally passed on the submission, citing Sheridan’s unavailability for television projects that read:

Taylor thanks you very much for your interest. Unfortunately, he’s unavailable for TV projects.

However, Paramount officially greenlit Yellowstone shortly after, prompting Salkin to identify what she describes as an unmistakable pattern of copied creative elements rather than mere coincidental tropes of the Western genre.

The filing outlines several direct parallels between both properties that go beyond standard cowboy archetypes. Salkin points out that her materials specifically framed a tribal casino as the institutional epicenter of political and economic power, featured high-stakes confrontations staged inside the tribal chairman’s casino office over reservation expansion, and heavily detailed trust land disputes.

Furthermore, as reported by TMZ, Salkin has provided a character-by-character breakdown and claimed that Yellowstone has followed several casting recommendations she proposed for key roles. Likewise, she clarified that Sheridan’s Yellowstone pitch was rejected by HBO in 2017 due to its similarities with her own work.

Interestingly, Sheridan himself revealed during an appearance at Tom McCutcheon’s The SHOW podcast earlier this March how the project was “set up at HBO” and how Michael Ellenberg, who was the vice president at HBO at that time, “hated the project.” Sheridan also recalled that the executive told him the only way the show could work was if they had cast an A-list actor like Robert Redford in the lead role.

Meanwhile, the legal battle lands at a pivotal moment as the Yellowstone universe continues to expand with multiple prequel and sequel series across Paramount’s roster. Salkin is seeking an injunction alongside unspecified damages and a share of franchise profits. With representatives for Sheridan and Paramount yet to issue a public rebuttal, the brewing courtroom showdown threatens to cast a shadow over one of modern television’s most lucrative storytelling empires.

Do you think the lawsuit has solid ground, or is this just another case of shared Western tropes? Drop your thoughts in the comments below!