Writer Lauren J. Salkin has accused Taylor Sheridan of stealing his marquee series “Yellowstone” from her 2016 pitch in a lawsuit filed on Friday. 101 Studios, Paramount and Elevate Entertainment are also listed as defendants.
\n\nReps for Sheridan, 101 Studios, Paramount and Elevate Entertainment did not immediately respond to Variety’s request for comment.
\n\nIn the court documents, obtained by Variety, Salkin alleges that she pitched her own sprawling Western drama, “Sovereign Nation,” to Sheridan’s management company, Elevate Entertainment, in 2016, only to be told: “Taylor thanks you very much for your interest. Unfortunately, he’s unavailable for TV projects.” The suit then claims that “Yellowstone” was greenlit at Paramount “within months” of her rejection.
\n\n“Sheridan, however, was not ‘unavailable for TV projects,’” the suit reads, “Instead, he and others used Salkin’s copyrighted works to develop Yellowstone. On June 20, 2018, Paramount Network aired its first episode.”
\n\nThe lawsuit lists several “specific expressive choices” that “Yellowstone” allegedly lifted from Salkin’s “Sovereign Nation.” Those elements, the suit states, include “a tribal casino functioning as the institutional center of political and development power; a signature confrontation staged in the tribal chairman’s casino office over expansion beyond reservation boundaries; the use of trust land, the…
Original source: https://variety.com/v/tv/