Taylor Sheridan’s Landman, Lioness, and 1883 Make Fort Worth a Boomtown for Film and TV

With defining scenes featuring Sundance Square Plaza, River Crest Country Club, and Texas Christian University, Fort Worth is as much a character in Landman as its star, Billy Bob Thornton. The recently released Paramount TV series — written and produced by Cowtown’s own Taylor Sheridan — has garnered nearly 15 million viewers, solidifying the city as a rising hub for cinematic storytelling. The show, starring Demi Moore and Jon Hamm alongside Thornton, follows Tommy Norris (Thornton), a seasoned landman navigating the complexities of the oil industry.

Fort Worth’s newly appointed film commissioner, Taylor Hardy, tells PaperCity that part of Sheridan’s success lies in his ability to tell stories about people who rarely fill central roles in film and shows. “Sheridan takes viewers into worlds that we may not otherwise see — everything from work life on oilfields to what it was like to live in 1883. He values authenticity, which helps audiences connect with the characters,” she says.

Taylor Sheridan’s team began working with the Fort Worth Film Commission in late 2020 when his crew filmed an equestrian scene. In 2021, the filmmaker picked the Stockyards as the setting for the first two episodes of 1883, Yellowstone’s prequel series. Landman was shot in and around Fort Worth earlier this year, and the second season of another Sheridan creation, Lioness, starring Nicole Kidman, was largely filmed here in Cowtown. Throughout all those projects, Fort Worth Film Commission team members were on hand to secure filming permits and scout locations for Sheridan’s team.

When Hardy isn’t answering urgent requests from local film crews, she’s drafting pitch packages to attract new out-of-state productions, managing the Film Commission’s social media (@filmfortworth), and finding ways to tell the stories of local filmmakers and the businesses that go above and beyond to host film crews. Her goals for 2025 include diversifying Fort Worth’s film projects and supporting college students who want to enter the film industry.

There’s more than red-carpet glamour at stake: Shows like Landman, Lioness, and many others filmed in Fort Worth have generated hundreds of millions for the local economy since 2015, the year the Film Commission was founded. Sheridan’s 101 Studios alone has booked 75,000 hotel nights in Cowtown since 2021, Hardy says.

Taylor Sheridan and his wife Nicole recently co-chaired the 2024 NCHA Celebrity Cutting at Will Rogers Coliseum — a sign of the couple’s connections to the community that goes beyond film. Hardy credits her team’s 10-year focus on hospitality as central to Fort Worth’s current film renaissance. Any call or email she receives, whether from an indie film crew or Paramount executive, is answered with the same service-minded spirit. She sees that authentic approach reflected in Sheridan’s crews. Actors less familiar with life on the ranch are given a thorough primer before they step in front of a camera.

“Sheridan hosts cowboy camps where actors come to Fort Worth to learn how to be an authentic cowboy,” she says. “Everything is intentional. It is exciting to have a show like Landman that we can claim to be our own.”