Taylor Sheridan‘s Madison showed dedication to Robert Redford after an unexpected connection that can be traced back Yellowstone.
The tribute to Redford was posted at the end of the premiere on Saturday, March 14. While Redford seemed unconcerned Madison before his death in September 2025, he participated in Sheridan’s work.
While thinking about Yellowstone It’s due in June 2023, said Sheridan, 55 The Hollywood Reporter in the profile that he originally pitched the show as a film. Sheridan called it “The Godfather in Montana” before it ended up in series development at HBO. At the time, Sheridan recalled unsupportive HBO executives Kevin Costner in the lead role as John Dutton.
“They said, ‘We want Robert Redford,'” he shared. “They said, ‘If you can get us Robert Redford, we’ll shoot the pilot.’
Sheridan then visited Redford – and convinced him to join the show.
“I drive to Sundance and spend the day with him and he agrees to play John Dutton,” Sheridan continued. “I call the senior vice president in charge of production and say, ‘I got him!’ ‘Who did you find?’ ‘Robert Redford.’ ‘What?!’ ‘He said if I got Robert Redford, he would light up the show.’
Sheridan continued: “And he says — and you can’t make this s*** up — ‘We meant the Robert Redford type.'”
Yellowstone it eventually landed on the Paramount Network and aired for five seasons with Costner, 71, in the lead role. Seridan, on the other hand, did not end up working with Redford before his death at the age of 89.
The tribute to The Madison comes as Sheridan celebrates another career achievement. After becoming a household name for Yellowstone, which aired from 2018 to 2024, Sheridan created the prequels 1883 and 1923 as well as spinoffs The Dutton Ranch and Marshals.
Sheridan also worked on reality shows Landman, Mayor of Kingstown, lion again Tulsa King. News broke in October 2025 that Sheridan had closed a major deal with NBCUniversal. The five-year film, TV and broadcast deal will begin on January 1, 2029, after Sheridan TV’s deal with Paramount – which expires in 2028 – officially expires.
Paramount will retain the rights to Yellowstone and other franchises created by Sheridan under his deal with the company, so he is expected to create a brand new IP for NBCUniversal. Sheridan’s move comes after Paramount’s recent merger with Skydance.
“I spent the first 37 years of my life compromising. When I stopped acting, I decided I was going to tell my own stories,” Sheridan said. THR in the 2023 profile. “If you don’t want me to tell them, that’s fine. Send them back and I’ll find someone who does — or I won’t, and I’ll read them in a weird theater. But I won’t compromise. There’s no compromise.”
Sheridan expressed gratitude to Paramount for supporting his ideas.
“Because Paramount trusts me and gives me time to shoot 10 to 14 days for a television episode, we can take it as a movie, and it looks like a movie,” he told Deadline in January 2022. “We can take the time to rehearse it and light it and build these pieces. And when I call them and say, ‘I need two helicopters in one day,’ they just go, ‘they just go,’ they just go a day.” one.
He added: “At the end of the day, going to some of these places where a lot of people haven’t been, where you open up a new world, and all these places or characters in the story, it’s interesting to me.”
Madison continues on Paramount+ Saturday, March 21.
