Is Taylor Sheridan's 'Landman' Based on a True Story? (2024)

Now that Taylor Sheridan's latest Paramount+ drama, Landman, has finally hit the streamer, there's an obvious question on everyone's minds: Is Landman based on a true story? After previously dazzling audiences with hits like Yellowstone, Tulsa King, and Lioness, Sheridan has added yet another prestige drama to his repertoire. But to answer the previous question, that depends on how you define "true story." After all, like many of Sheridan's projects, there are elements of reality woven throughout the narrative, and that's what makes a story like Landman so fascinating.

'Landman' Is Based on a Podcast Series Called 'Boomtown'

Like many of Sheridan's previous shows, Landman wasn't created by the Yellowstone showrunner alone. Screenwriter and journalist Christian Wallace worked alongside Sheridan to make Paramount+'s latest drama a reality, though his connection to the Permian Basin (the location in which Landman takes place) runs deeper. Back in 2019, Wallace wrote an article for Texas Monthly titled "The Price of Oil" (though it has since been republished under a different name) that chronicled the oil boom occurring and how it began to change the landscape of modern-day West Texas. From there, the outlet produced Boomtown, a twelve-part serial podcast that covers the stretch of US-285 known as the "Highway to Hell" due to the sheer number of deaths that have occurred due to tanker trucks since the boom began.

The podcast served as a loose inspiration for Landman, and chronicled how the oil boom in the Permian Basin affected the lives of everyone from roughnecks and tycoons to sex workers and West Texas locals. Of course, Billy Bob Thornton's Tommy Norris, the crisis executive for the fictional M-Tex Oil, isn't a real person, but he's likely based on very real executives within the oil industry. But even if Landman isn't exactly a true story, it's a series inspired by true events, and by the harsh way of living that many in West Texas (and any oil town for that matter) are forced to endure. It's not easy work, and it can be incredibly dangerous, but where there's great risk, there may also be great reward.

'Landman' May Not Be a True Story, but It's Inspired by a Real Oil Boom

But what about this big oil boom? Well, as Wallace put it in his 2019 article, it was "the biggest oil boom the region has ever seen." In 2004, things started to change in West Texas for the first time in decades. Things were looking as good for the folks in the Permian Basin as it was for Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood, and certainly, the oil companies were thrilled as well. "The upward trend continued for the next four years until sweet crude peaked at an all-time high of $145.29," Wallace explained. "Around this time, there was a paradigm shift in the industry." Wallace himself moved back home in 2012 after grad school and began working the oil fields with a family friend's independent company out of their hometown of Andrews, Texas. Though he only worked the fields for a year, the close calls that came with it proved to be enough.

This is the type of story that Landman aims to tell. It follows everyone from the top-shelf oil execs to the bottom-of-the-barrel roughnecks who risk their lives to put food on the table. The Paramount+ series, like Wallace's Boomtown podcast before it, makes no apologies for the industry. Instead, it highlights all the trimmings and trappings that go along with the American oil industry, even the less-than-desirable ones. In fact, Taylor Sheridan himself once told a similar tale in his 2016 crime thriller, Hell or High Water, which shared a similar Texas-based location. So, is Landman a true story? Certainly. It's the story of many West Texans who have lived their whole lives based on what the oil companies bring in. No, none of the characters are real individuals, but there's a reality to the story that one can only experience by visiting the Permian Basin itself.

Landman airs Sundays on Paramount+.

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Landman

Not Yet Rated

Drama

In the rugged terrain of West Texas, a team of landmen work to secure oil and gas leases, acting as intermediaries between landowners and energy corporations. The narrative centers on a driven landman whose ambitions in the energy sector lead him into complex negotiations and moral quandaries. The show explores the intense competition and the far-reaching consequences of the landmen's deals, highlighting the intersection of personal ambition and the broader effects on the community and the natural world.

Cast

Billy Bob Thornton , Ali Larter , Michelle Randolph , Jacob Lofland , Alejandro Akara , James Jordan , Kayla Wallace , Paulina Chávez , Mark Collie

Seasons

1

Creator(s)

Taylor Sheridan , Christian Wallace

Where To Watch

Paramount+

Writers

Taylor Sheridan , Christian Wallace

Watch on Paramount+