Taylor Sheridan is returning to the big screen. His production company has acquired two original feature projects — Visalia and Capture the Flag — marking his first produced feature screenplays in five years and his clearest move back into films since he largely shifted his focus to television.

The announcement was made on 27 July by Bosque Ranch Productions, Sheridan’s own company, and 101 Studios, the studio closely associated with Yellowstone and much of his TV output. The films originated with producer Andrew Lauren, whose credits include the Oscar-nominated The Brutalist. Lauren has said he conceptualised the stories with Sheridan long before Yellowstone became a cultural phenomenon, and that both projects have been in development for years.

Two stories shaped by real-world change

Visalia follows a determined young Cuban woman who escapes the only life she has ever known, crossing dangerous waters in search of freedom in America. When a historic political shift pulls her back toward Cuba, she is forced to confront a homeland that has changed — and to reckon with the price she has already paid to survive. The premise gains added resonance from recent shifts in the political and migratory landscape, which Lauren has suggested helped accelerate the project’s path toward production.

Capture the Flag centres on a NASA engineer thrown into a high-stakes race to build the first reusable spacecraft capable of travelling to the moon and back. A powerful tech tycoon offers him the chance to make history, but only if he is willing to compromise his limits, loyalties and moral boundaries. The story sits at the intersection of ambition, private capital and the ethics of exploration — themes that have become more prominent as commercial space ventures have expanded.

Lauren described the pairing of the two films as the product of long-term belief rather than sudden opportunism. “These two projects have been years in the making — ideas I believed in deeply, never anticipating that advances in science and shifts in the political landscape would accelerate their path to realization,” he said. “I worked on developing them with Taylor long before his emergence as one of the industry’s most distinctive, visionary voices. It’s incredibly rewarding to see his continued passion and commitment to bringing these stories to the screen.”

A return to features after a TV-dominated run

Sheridan’s last produced feature scripts arrived in 2021: Those Who Wish Me Dead, starring Angelina Jolie, and Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse, starring Michael B. Jordan. Before that, he earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay for Hell or High Water (2016), the film that cemented his reputation for tense, morally shaded American crime stories.

In the years since Yellowstone became a major hit, Sheridan’s output has been overwhelmingly televisual. He wrote the prequel series 1883 and 1923, and has continued as the primary creative force behind Mayor of Kingstown, Landman, Tulsa King, Lioness and The Madison. He remains an executive producer on the ongoing Yellowstone-adjacent series Marshals and Dutton Ranch, but he is no longer writing those shows — a partial step back from the franchise that defined his recent career.

The acquisition of Visalia and Capture the Flag therefore represents more than a routine development announcement. It signals Sheridan’s willingness to re-engage with the feature form after a period in which television absorbed most of his creative energy. Whether he will direct either film, or remain solely as writer and producer, has not been disclosed. Casting, directors and release plans are similarly unconfirmed.

What it suggests about the next phase

Sheridan’s brand has become closely associated with rugged American landscapes, institutional pressure and characters forced into impossible choices. Both new projects appear to extend those concerns into fresh territory: one through the personal and political costs of migration and return, the other through the moral compromises of technological ambition. Lauren’s involvement — as a producer with a strong independent-film track record — also suggests the films may aim for a different scale or tone than the sprawling TV universe Sheridan helped build.

For now, the concrete facts are limited but clear. Taylor Sheridan is writing features again. Two long-gestating original stories have found a formal home with his companies. And after several years in which the Yellowstone ecosystem dominated his public profile, the next chapter of his career may play out at least partly on the big screen.