Taylor Sheridan says he intentionally ‘rage-baits’ television critics

Taylor Sheridan, the creator of “Yellowstone” and “Landman,” said he deliberately provokes television critics and does not care about their reaction, according to comments made during an appearance on the Bill Simmons Podcast, where Mr. Sheridan also discussed his new book and his relationship with studio executives. 

Mr. Sheridan, who appeared on the show to promote his book “How Not to Die in Prison,” co-written with Tom Nelson, said he anticipated and even engineered the criticism directed at him over Demi Moore’s role in the first season of “Landman,” the Paramount+ drama in which Ms. Moore’s character spent much of the season on the sidelines.

“When I met with Demi about that I said, ’Here’s the thing: You’re going to be an extra in this show for seven episodes, and the critics are going to come after me. “I’m underutilizing [Moore], can’t write for women,” all this nonsense,’” Mr. Sheridan said, recounting the conversation. “Then I’m going to kill your husband and you’re going to have to run the oil company.”

Ms. Moore’s character, Cami Miller, took over the family oil company after her on-screen husband, played by Jon Hamm, died at the end of the first season.

“The critics and me — I don’t care what they think, and it annoys the s—- out of them that I don’t care,” Mr. Sheridan said. “I’ll be the first to tell you that there are things that I do that rage-bait them a bit, and this is one of them. I could have given them more episodes so they could have realized that flip, but I didn’t. I just sent them the first three. Because f—- ’em, honestly.”

The remarks were first reported by AL.com, with additional comments confirmed through Variety, which interviewed Mr. Sheridan about the same podcast appearance. 

Mr. Sheridan, who has built a television empire of shows including “1923,” “Tulsa King” and “The Madison” largely outside the traditional Hollywood studio system, also criticized network and studio executives, saying they exert too much control over which projects move forward.

“Our business, at this point, is truly governed by these executives because they’re the ones that are going to determine whether or not your script is going to go into production,” Mr. Sheridan said. “They’re going to try and control every element of that.”

He said Paramount once employed a large development department devoted to giving him notes on his scripts before the studio eliminated the department.

“When I first started at Paramount, there was a huge development department,” Mr. Sheridan said. “There were all these people whose job was to sit there and give me notes and tell me what to do and how to do it, and after four years, they got rid of that department. All those people got fired. Because they didn’t need ’em. They had no job. Because I wouldn’t return their calls. Because they don’t do what I do.”

Mr. Sheridan, who films much of his slate at his production complex outside Fort Worth, Texas, signed a deal earlier this year that will move his future film and television projects to NBCUniversal once his arrangement with Paramount concludes, according to a report from USA Today that covered the same podcast interview.

He also took aim at Marvel during the conversation, criticizing the studio’s reliance on what he called “information dumps” in place of moving the plot forward through action, according to the Hollywood Reporter, which conducted independent reporting on the interview.