Taylor Sheridan, the creator of Yellowstone, has seen his fair share of struggle while making a name for himself in Hollywood. Though he started out as an actor, he switched paths and turned to screenwriting with Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario. He won a Writers Guild of America Award nomination for the same. Soon he switched to direction.
In 2017, he worked on a film, Wind River which starred Elizabeth Olsen and Jeremy Renner. But the film faced a little hiccup with The Weinstein Company being able to acquire the rights to the film’s distribution. Soon after the deal was signed, the ill deeds of the disgraced producer surfaced. So, Sheridan took it upon himself to ensure that the show is not connected to the image of Weinstein.
Taylor Sheridan freed his film from Harvey Weinstein
The premise of Wind River circles around the investigation of a r-pe and murder of an Indigenous teenage girl. The film’s leads Elizabeth Olsen and Jeremy Renner an FBI agent and a Wildlife officer respectively work on the case to find out what happened to the girl. The creator of the film, Taylor Sheridan claimed he created the film to raise awareness of the rise of crimes against indigenous women.
With such a sensitive issue at its core, it would’ve been dire for the film to be connected with a name like Weinstein’s, who was accused of s-xual harassment. The creator of the film took the onus to free his film from the tainted name. Taylor Sheridan shared it with Vanity Fair,
“Each day a subsequent story broke, and it got progressively worse, and things went from coercion and harassment to assault. At that point, feeling sick, it became a revelation that . . . I can’t have a film about violence against women silenced by the perpetrator of that very act. I called the financier, I called the producer, I called Jeremy [Renner], and Lizzie [Olsen], and I said, ‘This is what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna take it back.’”
He also revealed that the movie was financed by Acacia Entertainment, which is owned by Tunica-Biloxi Indian Tribe, and Savvy Media Holdings by Producer Matthew George. Becoming a hit at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, Wind River received many positive reviews. This is what attracted The Weinstein Company to sign a deal to get the film’s distribution rights.
Taylor Sheridan took away the rights from The Weinstein Company
After the first case against Harvey Weinstein came to light. Sheridan revealed that he talked to David Glassier, who was a C.O.O with TWC, to take away the movie’s distribution rights. He also shared that even Glassier was shocked by the revelation about the disgraced producer.
“I said, ‘It’s unfair to the people this movie’s about that it be under this umbrella . . . I need the film back,” Sheridan said he told Glasser. “I need the profits to go to a charity of my choosing. He seemed as gut-punched as anybody,”
He took away all the control of TWC on his film and the profits earned by the film were sent to the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe. He further shed light on the harassment instances in Hollywood and how the Weinstein revelation helped start a movement against it,
There’s a necessary purging that’s happening. There’s a certain justice in the fact that this is the last thing [Harvey Weinstein] did, and the thing I took from him.”
He celebrated the fact that his film dropped the tainted Weinstein name. Wind River earned $45 million over a budget of just $11 million.
Source: Vanity Fair
