Broken Records And A Shock Golden Globe Nomination Prove Taylor Sheridan’s ‘Landman’ Is The Next ‘Yellowstone’
On December 9, 2024, Billy Bob Thornton received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor in a Drama TV Series for his performance in Taylor Sheridan’s Landman. Kevin Costner won the same award in 2023 for his performance as John Dutton in Sheridan’s hit show Yellowstone. The nomination proves that the prolific writer’s punchy lines are still the gem of Hollywood, and his choice of strong lead actors is unquestionable. Thornton’s nomination is just one of the many positives around Landman, proving its potential to become the new dominant neo-western on TV after the end of Yellowstone.
The second half of Yellowstone‘s fifth season premiered to amazing numbers, as Season 5 Episode 9 hit 16.4 million single-day views, the highest in the show’s history. The numbers come despite Kevin Costner’s dramatic exit, which was expected to negatively impact the show’s viewership. Taylor Sheridan smartly wrote John Dutton out of the show, bolstering the storylines of the rest of the cast to ensure the show finishes on a high, and it paid off (for some).
Yellowstone’s end was inevitable after Costner’s exit, and Sheridan clearly anticipated it if the recreation of the hit show’s best aspects in Landman are anything to go by. Landman is based on the hit podcast Boomtown by Christian Wallace, which aired on the Texas Monthly magazine between 2019 and 2020. Wallace is now a co-executive producer on Landman alongside Taylor Sheridan, acting as the show’s expert on West Texas oil. The podcast extensively covered all kinds of players in the Texas fracking-led oil boom, and the show has brought it all to life.
Like Yellowstone, which Sheridan admitted to have written specifically for Kevin Costner, Landman was written exclusively for Thornton. Thornton said that Sheridan proposed the show to him after he had an impressive cameo on his Yellowstone spinoff, 1883. The Goliath star confessed that he fell in love with the show immediately after reading the script, which he said was written in his voice. Thornton’s electric performance has proved Sheridan right once again, and Tommy Norris just could be the next John Dutton.
Despite their different settings, Yellowstone and Landman surprisingly have a lot in common, starting with Sheridan’s intense action and bluntness. The only real difference is Landman’s desolate desert setting with oil wells all over the background, a stark contrast to the green ranch in Yellowstone, with its iconic riparian forests and the Yellowstone River. The rest of the theme, including the sharp foul language, dark humor, and sense of desperation, is hard to miss in both shows.
Landman’s biggest attraction for Yellowstone fans, however, is the dysfunctional family trapped inside a dying empire at the heart of the action, just like the Duttons. Tommy Norris, just like John Dutton, is struggling to protect his family’s legacy as everything seems to collapse around them. Being a landman means he is in charge of securing mining rights and managing day-to-day operations for M-tek oil, a job that puts him at the heart of danger.
From having to deal with drug cartels and unscrupulous farmers who control the land to babysitting roughnecks on exploding oil wells and having to deal with angry, grieving families, Tommy lives life on the edge just like John Dutton. Tommy’s boss, Monty, is just one of the many prospectors funding the oil boom in the Permian Desert and won’t hesitate to leave Tommy in trouble to save his empire, so the Norrises are really on their own, another trait they share with the Duttons.
The Norris family is practically tied to the oil industry, meaning: a boom means the family is safe, and a bust spells doom. Tommy’s son, Cooper, is the latest Norris to join the precarious industry, having quit his studies to join his father in the desert as a rig worker, where he hopes to become an oil man. His daughter, Aynsley, on the other hand, is loving and loyal but has little interest in the family trade, sharing more traits with Yellowstone’s Kayce in that aspect.
Sheridan even recreated a fiercely loyal right-hand woman for Tommy, just like Beth Dutton in Yellowstone. M-Tek’s company lawyer, Rebecca Falcone (Kayla Wallace), is a corporate shark who won’t bow down. More similarities between Landman and Yellowstone characters are set to emerge in the future as the saga continues to unfold.
The show garnered a whopping 5.2 million single-day views on its opening weekend, aggregating 14.6 million in its first week, the best ever for a Paramount Original series. In ratings, the show opened to a 76% Rotten Tomatoes score, way higher than Yellowstone, which had a mere 56% in 2018. Landman is thus Paramount’s best-performing premiere since the Yellowstone prequel, 1923, in December 2022.
In Landman, Taylor Sheridan has created an explosive but authentic tale of life on the edge of America’s new frontier, and Yellowstone fans love it. As Yellowstone covers ranching, the industry that has largely shaped America’s past, Landman covers fracking as the one shaping the present and near future. The most important aspect of both shows is the relatable daily lives of American families at the heart of these industries. Landman resonates with a vast portion of Paramount viewers, just like Yellowstone.
While the show is yet to receive an official renewal, the development of the saga through the first season has left fans with a lot to look forward to from the Norris family and the rest of the characters in the Permian basin. The lead character, Billy Bob Thornton, has also confirmed that he is in Landman for the long haul. He hopes that his nomination for the Golden Globes will improve the show’s chances of getting renewed.
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