Taylor Sheridan continues to be one of the busiest people in Hollywood, and it isn’t just because he continues to expand the Yellowstone universe with
Taylor Sheridan continues to be one of the busiest people in Hollywood, and it isn’t just because he continues to expand the Yellowstone universe with up-to-date spin-offs like Marshals and Dutton Ranch. Back before he even wrote a single episode of Yellowstone, Sheridan delivered some all-time classic neo-Westerns like Sicario (starring Josh Brolin) and Hell or High Water (starring Chris Pine). Sheridan is also set to return to the world of movie-making in the next few years with F.A.S.T., a up-to-date action thriller being hailed as the next Sicario, and Call of Duty, a video game adaptation coming to theaters in 2028. Very little is known about Sheridan’s Call of Duty movie at the time of writing, but it does have a large rival to contend with in the Battlefield movie, which is being produced by Michael B. Jordan and Christopher McQuarrie.
With now more than 10 years of experience working as a writer in Hollywood, Taylor Sheridan has written some hits, but he’s also penned some bombs. One of the most polarizing movies of his career came back in 2021 when he worked with Michael B. Jordan to adapt one of Tom Clancy’s most notable novels, Without Remorse. Sheridan’s script famously made some large changes from the source material, which was met with a largely divisive response from fans. Due to Without Remorse also coming out around the time the COVID-19 pandemic was ravaging the world, the film was also not released in theaters and was instead dumped straight to streaming on Prime Video. It’s still one of the most-watched movies in the world on the platform, though, even five years later.
Collider Exclusive · Taylor Sheridan Universe Quiz
Which Taylor Sheridan
Show Do You Belong In?
Yellowstone · Landman · Tulsa King · Mayor of Kingstown
Four worlds. All of them brutal, complicated, and built on power, loyalty, and the price of survival. Taylor Sheridan doesn’t write heroes — he writes people who do what they have to do and live with the cost. Ten questions will reveal which one of his worlds you were made for.
Yellowstone
Landman
Tulsa King
Mayor of Kingstown
FIND YOUR WORLD →
01
Where does your power come from?
In Sheridan’s world, everyone has leverage. The question is what kind.
ALand, legacy, and a name that’s been feared and respected for generations.
BKnowing the deal better than anyone else in the room — and being willing to walk away first.
CReputation. I’ve earned it the difficult way, and everyone in the room knows it.
DBeing the only person both sides will talk to. That makes me indispensable — and unsafe.
NEXT QUESTION →
02
Who do you put first, no matter what?
Loyalty in Sheridan’s universe is always absolute — and always costly.
AFamily — blood or chosen. The ranch, the name, the people who carry it with me.
BThe company — or whoever’s signing the cheques. Loyalty follows the contract.
CMy crew. The men who stood with me when it counted — I don’t abandon them for anything.
DMy community — even when my community is a powder keg and I’m the only thing stopping it from blowing.
NEXT QUESTION →
03
Someone crosses a line. How do you respond?
Every Sheridan protagonist has a line. What matters is what happens after it’s crossed.
AQuietly, decisively, and in a way that sends a message to everyone watching.
BI outmanoeuvre them legally, financially, and politically before they even know I’ve moved.
CDirectly. Old school. You cross me, you hear about it to your face — and then you deal with the consequences.
DI absorb it, calculate the fallout, and find the move that keeps the whole system from collapsing.
NEXT QUESTION →
04
Where do you feel most in your element?
Sheridan’s worlds are as much about place as they are about people.
AWide open land — mountains, sky, silence. Somewhere you can see trouble coming from a mile away.
BThe oil fields of West Texas — brutal, lucrative, and indifferent to whoever happens to be standing on top of them.
CA mid-size city where the rules haven’t quite caught up yet — fertile ground for someone with vision and nerve.
DA rust-belt town built around a prison — where everyone’s life is shaped by what’s inside those walls.
NEXT QUESTION →
05
How do you feel about operating in the grey?
Nobody in a Sheridan show has tidy hands. The question is how they carry the dirt.
AI do what has to be done to protect what’s mine. I’ll answer for it eventually — but not today.
BGrey is just business. The line moves depending on what’s at stake, and I move with it.
CI have a code — it’s not the law’s code, but it’s mine, and I don’t break it.
DI’ve made peace with it. Keeping the peace requires compromises most people don’t have the stomach for.
NEXT QUESTION →
06
What are you actually fighting to hold onto?
Every Sheridan character is fighting a war. The real question is what they’re defending.
AA way of life that the state-of-the-art world is doing everything it can to erase.
BMy position — and the leverage that comes with being the person everyone needs to close a deal.
CRelevance. I’ve been away, I’ve been written off — and I’m proving that was a mistake.
DWhatever frail order I’ve managed to build — because without it, everything burns.
NEXT QUESTION →
07
How do you lead?
Authority in Sheridan’s world is never given — it’s established, maintained, and constantly tested.
ABy example and force of will. People follow me because they believe in what I’m protecting — and because they know what happens if they don’t.
BThrough negotiation and leverage. I don’t need people to like me — I need them to need me.
CBy being the smartest, most experienced person in the room and making sure everyone quietly knows it.
DBy being the serene centre of a situation that would spiral without me — and accepting that nobody thanks you for it.
NEXT QUESTION →
08
Someone up-to-date arrives and tries to change how things work. Your reaction?
Every Sheridan show has an outsider disrupting an established order. Sometimes that outsider is you.
AThey’ll learn. Or they won’t. Either way, the land was here before them and it’ll be here after.
BI figure out what they want, what they’re worth, and whether they’re an asset or a problem — speedy.
CI was the outsider once. I give them a chance — one — to show they understand respect.
DNew players destabilise everything I’ve built. I assess the threat and manage it before it manages me.
NEXT QUESTION →
09
What has your position cost you?
Nobody gets to where these characters are without paying for it. The bill is always personal.
AMy family’s peace — maybe their innocence. The ranch demands everything, and I’ve let it take too much.
BRelationships, time, any version of a normal life. The job eats everything that isn’t nailed down.
CYears. Decades in some cases. Time I can’t get back — but I’m not done yet.
DMy conscience, mostly. And the ability to ever fully trust anyone on either side of the wall.
NEXT QUESTION →
10
When it’s over, what do you want people to say?
Sheridan’s characters all know the ending is coming. The question is what they leave behind.
AThat I held the line. That the land is still ours and everything I did was worth it.
BThat I was the best at what I did and that no deal ever got closed without me at the table.
CThat I built something real, somewhere nobody expected it, and I did it on my own terms.
DThat I kept the peace when nobody else could — and that the town is still standing because of it.
REVEAL MY SHOW →
Sheridan Has Spoken
You Belong In…
The show that claimed the most of your answers is the world you were built for. If two tied, both are shown — you’re complicated enough to straddle two Sheridan universes.
Yellowstone
Landman
Tulsa King
Mayor of Kingstown
You are a Dutton — or you might as well be. You understand that some things are worth protecting at any cost, and that the state-of-the-art world’s indifference to history, to land, to legacy, is not something you’re willing to accept quietly. You lead from the front, you carry your family’s weight without complaint, and when someone threatens what’s yours, you don’t escalate — you finish it. You’re not cruel. But you are absolute. In Yellowstone’s world, that combination of ferocity and loyalty doesn’t make you a villain. It makes you the only thing standing between everything that matters and everyone who wants to take it.
You thrive in the chaos of high-stakes negotiation, where the money is enormous, the margins are gaunt, and the wrong word in the wrong room can cost everyone everything. You’re a fixer — the person called when a situation is already on fire and needs someone with the nerve to walk into it. West Texas oil country rewards exactly what you are: pointed, adaptable, unsentimental, and absolutely clear-eyed about what people want and what they’ll do to get it. You’re not naive enough to think this world is fair. You’re clever enough to be the one deciding who it’s fair to.
You are a Dwight Manfredi — someone who has served their time, paid their dues, and arrived somewhere unexpected with nothing but their reputation and their wits. You adapt without losing yourself. You build loyalty through respect rather than fear, though you’re not above reminding people that the two aren’t mutually exclusive. Tulsa King is for people who are still standing when everyone assumed they’d be finished — who find, in an unfamiliar place, that they’re more capable than the world gave them credit for. You don’t need a throne. You build one, wherever you happen to land.
You carry the weight of a system that is broken by design, and you do it anyway — because someone has to, and because you’re the only one positioned to do it without the whole thing collapsing. Mike McLusky’s world is for people who are comfortable operating where there are no good options, only less catastrophic ones. You speak every language: law enforcement, criminal, political, human. That fluency makes you invaluable and it makes you a target. You’ve made your peace with both. Mayor of Kingstown belongs to people who understand that keeping the peace is not the same as being at peace — and who do the job regardless.
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What Is ‘Without Remorse’ About?
Taylor Sheridan may have written the script for Without Remorse, but it was Stefano Sollima who directed the film, the very same director who worked with Sheridan on Sicario: Day of the Soldado. In addition to Michael B. Jordan, Without Remorse also stars Jodie Turner-Smith, Jamie Bell, Guy Pearce, and Colman Domingo. Without Remorse has also been hailed as Sheridan’s attempt to recreate the magic of John Wick, but most fans would agree that it doesn’t hold up as well as Keanu Reeves‘ action franchise. The official synopsis for the film, which holds impoverished scores of 45% from critics and 41% from audiences on the aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes, reads as follows:
“An elite Navy SEAL uncovers an international conspiracy while seeking justice for the murder of his pregnant wife in Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse, the explosive origin story of action hero John Clark — one of the most popular characters in author Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan universe. When a squad of Russian soldiers kills his family in retaliation for his role in a top-secret op, Sr. Chief John Kelly (Michael B. Jordan) pursues the assassins at all costs. Joining forces with a fellow SEAL (Jodie Turner-Smith) and a shadowy CIA agent (Jamie Bell), Kelly’s mission unwittingly exposes a covert plot that threatens to engulf the U.S. and Russia in an all-out war. Torn between personal honor and loyalty to his country, Kelly must fight his enemies without remorse if he hopes to avert disaster and reveal the powerful figures behind the conspiracy.”
Check out Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse on Prime Video and stay tuned to Collider for more updates and coverage of Taylor Sheridan’s future projects.
Release Date
April 30, 2021
Runtime
110 minutes
