"Yellowstone" creator Taylor Sheridan has kept mum about his upcoming Paramount+ series "Land Man," which centers on the Texas oil boom. But in a Jan. 4 appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast, the writer-director opened up about the gritty new show and why Billy Bob Thornton was the right star to lead it.
In a wide-ranging conversation with podcast host and comedian Joe Rogan, Taylor Sheridan revealed that he's currently working on the still-undated "Land Man" and expects to begin filming the series soon.
Sheridan also revealed that he cast Billy Bob Thornton in "Land Man" after briefly working with the Oscar winner in the 2021 wagon train epic "1883." In the second episode of that series, Thornton made a memorable cameo as Jim Courtright, a real-life Marshal in Fort Worth, Texas in the late-1800s.
"[Billy Bob Thornton] showed up for one day [and] goes, 'What am I doing?' Doing this. 'Great.' Wicked." Sheridan recalled of filming "1883."
"That's when I decided, 'I got something for you. I think there's something we can do.'"
Sheridan went on to praise Thornton's famously carefree persona. "That's a gangster," he told Rogan. "And doesn't give a f***. Does not give a f***."
Per the official synopsis, "Land Man" is "an upstairs/downstairs story of roughnecks and wildcat billionaires that are fueling a boom so big it's reshaping our climate, our economy and our geopolitics."
Thornton will play Tommy Norris, a crisis manager at an oil company, in the series. Other cast members include Ali Larter and Michelle Randolph. The show is partly based on "Boomtown," a Texas Monthly podcast about the history and culture of the oil boom in West Texas' Permian Basin.
