Taylor Sheridan likes to fly solo and doesn’t want it any other way.
The Yellowstone co-creator has revealed that he might quit TV if he is forced to employ teams of writers — or so-called “writers rooms” — under possible terms imposed by the Writers Guild of America following the strike.
“The freedom of the artist to create must be unfettered,” Sheridan told The Hollywood Reporter.
“If they tell me, ‘You’re going to have to write a check for $540,000 to four people to sit in a room that you never have to meet,’ then that’s between the studio and the guild. But if I have to check in creatively with others for a story I’ve wholly built in my brain, that would probably be the end of me telling TV stories.”
Sheridan has written or co-written every episode of Yellowstone, working in a one-room “cabinet” he built in Wyoming, he told the Reporter. He has written every episode of the spin-off series 1883 and 1923.
The WGA is pressuring Hollywood studios to adopt a minimum number of writers per show, effectively mandating writers rooms on all series.
Hollywood writers have been striking for close to two months, bringing the entertainment industry to a virtual halt as they seek better compensation and a host of assurances, including the promise they won’t be replaced by artificial intelligence technology.
Sheridan also weighed in on Kevin Costner’s departure from Yellowstone, which will come to an end with its fifth and final season.
“I’m disappointed,” Sheridan told the Reporter. “It truncates the closure of his character. It doesn’t alter it, but it truncates it.”
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