Taylor Sheridan's Ambitious New Release Is Landman Meets The Martian

Taylor Sheridan has a very ambitious new project in the works, and it looks like it could combine the best parts of Sheridan's own Landman and Andy Weir's hit novel and film The Martian. Taylor Sheridan has become one of the most famous screenwriters in Hollywood in the past decade. Some of Sheridan's best shows, like Yellowstone, Landman, and Lioness, dominate the list of Paramount+'s best shows, and he's established himself as a nearly household name.

Sheridan has made a huge name for himself, especially with Westerns and on Paramount+, but both of those facts are about to change. Sheridan is leaving Paramount for NBCUniversal in 2029, meaning his new shows after that point will be Peacock originals. In another announcement, Sheridan revealed that he'll be writing two new upcoming movies, alongside previously announced projects like the Call of Duty movie and Lioness season 3.

Those two new movies, titled Visalia and Capture the Flag, could be game-changing for Taylor Sheridan. Both of them seem to be breaking new ground for the screenwriter, but Capture the Flag in particular seems to be a major shift. It's still very early on, and there are only sparse details available at this point, but Sheridan's new movie seems to be a fusion of Landman and the Matt Damon-led science fiction movie The Martian.

Taylor Sheridan's Capture The Flag Sounds Like It Combines Landman With The Martian

According to the logline for Capture the Flag, Taylor Sheridan's upcoming movie is heading into the realm of "hard" science fiction akin to The Martian or Project Hail Mary. The movie reportedly follows a NASA engineer on a quest to build a reusable spaceship that can go to the moon and back. Evidently, Capture the Flag is Sheridan's way of switching genres from his usual Western and Americana fare.

CAPTURE THE FLAG throws a NASA engineer into a desperate race to build the first reusable spacecraft capable of traveling to the moon and back, testing his limits, loyalties, and morals when a tech tycoon offers him the chance to make history — if he's willing to pay for it.

Again, it's too early to tell what Capture the Flag will be about with any certainty, but there are some fairly easy assumptions to make. That logline indicates that the movie is going to dive into the aerospace engineering and science behind space flight, similarly to how The Martian is built around the actual scientific and logistical issues of staging a rescue mission to Mars. If that proves to be the case, it will be a major pivot for Sheridan in terms of genre.

While it's decidedly sci-fi, Capture the Flag also has a lot of similarities with Sheridan's Landman. That last line of the logline, where a "tech tycoon offers him the chance to make history," sounds extremely similar to Andy Garcia's Gallindo in Landman. Both stories seem to hinge around a protagonist who is extremely capable in their chosen field and a wealthy businessman who asks them to sacrifice their morals and values in favor of making money. More broadly, Landman is also deeply involved in the technical business aspects of the oil industry, and Capture the Flag seems to be just as interested in the technical aspects of space travel.

Capture The Flag Could Be Taylor Sheridan's Most Unique Project Yet

While it is similar in premise to Landman, Taylor Sheridan's Capture the Flag could end up being his most unique project to date. As previously mentioned, Sheridan has made a name for himself as a Western and Americana writer. Almost all of his shows and movies fall under the same genre, and they all share a lot of similarities. They're action-oriented, follow a stubborn and traditional protagonist rallying against the modern world, and they're very much so interested in blue-collar, hands-on types of industries.

Capture the Flag sounds very different indeed. Instead of a Kevin Costner or Billy Bob Thornton type, the movie's protagonist seems to be a bookish, decidedly white-collar NASA rocket scientist. Hard science fiction is also about as far from the soapy Westerns Sheridan usually writes, both in tone and in the visual elements at play. By nature of focusing on cutting-edge rocket technology, as well, Capture the Flag probably won't be about traditional vs. modern values.

Taylor Sheridan seems to be broaching completely new ground as a writer with Capture the Flag. It's about as far out of his wheelhouse as he can get, and it's also continuing his recent trend of focusing on movies, with his last film writing credit coming in 2021's Those Who Wish Me Dead. If it's a hit, Capture the Flag may just be the first time Taylor Sheridan experiments with the genres he writes about.