Taylor Sheridan’s new Paramount+ drama Landman, starring Billy Bob Thornton as a crisis executive at a Big Oil giant, is one of the biggest TV shows across all of streaming at the moment.
The series, set in the boomtowns of West Texas, tells a story about the vast fortunes created by Big Oil — and about the billionaires and roughnecks alike who are fueling the boom-and-bust cycle of the oil economy. When Landman premiered last week, the 5.2 million total viewers the show pulled in on launch day marked the biggest global series premiere on Paramount+ in two years, with Landman joining Tulsa King and 1923 as having the top three biggest launches in the streamer’s history.
Many of those viewers, however, might not be familiar with the source material for the show from co-creators Sheridan and Christian Wallace. The show is actually based on the acclaimed podcast Boomtown, from Imperative Entertainment and Texas Monthly, that launched in December 2019. Wallace, the podcast host, drew in part on his childhood years spent in Andrews, Texas, as well as his time as a roughneck working on drilling rigs in the oil fields.
In the first episode, the West Texas native introduces listeners to the region by presenting a cast of colorful local characters, including his uncle — Skeet Wallace, a 30-year veteran of the oil field who continues to make his living in the patch. “Few places stoke the imagination like West Texas,” Texas Monthly writes, by way of introducing the podcast. “It’s a land of mesquite-studded prairies, drifting tumbleweeds, and wide-open vistas. It’s also home to America’s most productive oil field, the Permian Basin.”
Furthermore, the magazine continues, the Permian basin is booming like never before — bringing havoc to some and epic wealth to others.
The podcast that inspired Landman goes on to blend investigative journalism with vivid storytelling to probe how the black gold rush shapes lives, communities, and entire economies. Characters introduced range from Midland oilman David Arrington to a stripper-turned-journalist who years ago danced in a West Texas club. In both the podcast as well as the Paramount+ show, this is a story in which opportunity and wealth coexist with inequality and natural destruction — such is life in the oil country of West Texas.
Read more about the podcast here, and check out the first episode of Boomtown below:
