Yellowstone co-creator Taylor Sheridan returns to the big screen – and the Old West – to depict the Comanches’ final battles with settlers in Empire Of The Summer Moon

It’s been over two years since Taylor Sheridan directed a feature film, but the Yellowstone co-creator is ready to return to the big screen.

Sheridan, 53, has chosen the non-fiction book Empire Of The Summer Moon: Quanah Parker And The Rise And Fall Of The Comanches, The Most Powerful Indian Tribe In American History, Deadline reported this week.

The book chronicles the history of the Comanche nation through the mid-19th century and into the 20th century when Quanah Parker, often described as the last chief of the Comanche, went to war against colonizing settlers from the East.

Sheridan secured the rights to adapt the book, which was written by SC Gwynne, through a tense bidding war, although Bosque Ranch is said to have aggressively tried to secure ownership.

The Yellowstone mastermind, who already has five spin-offs of that series underway or in the works, will reportedly write and direct the epic film.

The book follows the Comanche nation in the mid-19th century and follows its “last” chief Quanah, who pushed back the French and Spanish settlers before finally surrendering to American forces.

He will also produce for Bosque Ranch with Jenny Wood.

The adaptation was originally slated to be released at Warner Bros. are being made, and Sheridan was reportedly interested in helming the project at the time, though it currently doesn’t appear to have any connection to the film giant.

“I can’t think of anyone more qualified to bring Empire Of The Summer Moon to the screen than Taylor Sheridan,” said Gwynne. ‘He has a deep and nuanced insight into both the myth and reality of the Old West. I am happy that he is undertaking this project.’

The historian’s book became a bestseller and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize after publication in 2010.

Empire Of The Summer Moon follows the Comanche towards the end of the 19th century when Quanah Parker led the tribe.

His mother, Cynthia Ann Parker, a European-American woman, was kidnapped by the Comanche during an attack on an American fort when she was about nine years old.

Unlike other abductees, who were returned to their families, she was adopted by a Comanche family and became fully integrated into the tribe because of her young age.

She married a tribal chief, Peta Nocona, and had three children with him, including Quanah, the last chief before the Comanche Nation was forced to move to a reservation in Oklahoma.

Cynthia Parker was later captured by Texas Rangers when she was 33, and they forced her to separate from Quanah and her other children, although she desperately tried to reunite with her Comanche family, as she had little memory of her time with her Anglo -American family. family. Her story was a major inspiration for the character Natalie Wood in John Ford’s Western-starring classic John Wayne, The Searchers (1956).

Quanah and the Comanches were early successful in repelling Spanish and French colonists, and later went to war against American forces, but he eventually laid down his arms when the colonists continued to decimate American bison herds.

The U.S. government later appointed him principal leader of the Comanche nation, although the position was later replaced by the tribe with a chairman position.

The new film will be Sheridan’s first since 2021’s Those Who Wish Me Dead. He has been consumed with drama lately over his series Yellowstone (pictured), which has five spin-offs underway or in the works

Sheridan has long been fascinated by Quanah, seen in 1883 and 1923. Quanah is said to have chosen the site of the Four Sixes ranch in Texas, which Sheridan later purchased, and that is where artifacts belonging to the chief are located.

According to Deadline, Sheridan has had a long-standing fascination with Quanah, and the massive Four Sixes ranch he bought – along with an investor group – had a lance that once belonged to the chief, although it has since been moved to a museum for safekeeping.

Burk Burnett, who founded the ranch in 1870, had been friends with Quanah, and the Comanche chief reportedly selected the prime location for him in Texas.

He reportedly even killed a deer to mark the occasion, and the antlers still hang above the enormous stone fireplace that adorns the living room of the ranch’s main house.

Sheridan previously mentioned or referred to Quanah in his Yellowstone spin-offs (1883 and 1923).