TV writer Lauren J. Salkin filed a federal lawsuit Friday alleging that Taylor Sheridan, Paramount and NBCUniversal stole her idea for a television series and used it to create Yellowstone. The suit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
Salkin says she submitted a pilot script, show bible and pitch deck for a project called Sovereign Nation to Sheridan's management company, Elevate Entertainment, in late 2016 and early 2017. According to the complaint, Sovereign Nation was a "dramatic television series centered on tribal governance, casino-driven economic power and a modern war over land and development" that Salkin had developed over more than a decade.
Salkin alleges she received a response from Elevate on Feb. 1, 2017 indicating that Sheridan was "unavailable for TV projects." Within months, according to the complaint, Paramount greenlit Yellowstone, which premiered on the Paramount Network on June 20, 2018 and later moved to Peacock.
The suit contends that Yellowstone included "specific expressive choices already embodied in Salkin's materials," such as a tribal casino as the center of political power, confrontations in a tribal chairman's office over expansion beyond reservation boundaries, and the use of trust land and 99-year leases as mechanisms for development. Salkin also claims Yellowstone followed her proposed casting recommendations for key roles.
The complaint states that copyright law does not protect abstract ideas like a Western or land dispute, but rather "the copying of Salkin's particular expressive choices and their coordinated selection and arrangement." A senior HBO executive who had reviewed Sovereign Nation materials later told Salkin he recognized similarities between her project and Yellowstone, according to the suit. Salkin is seeking damages and injunctive relief.