Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan and partners have opened a massive news operating studio in North Texas.
SGS Studios, founded by Sheridan, producer David Glasser, and Dan Schryer, has partnered with Ross Perto Jr.’s Hillwood to construct a 450,000-square-foot production campus in collaboration with Paramount Television. The campus sits within AllianceTexas, Hillwood’s 27,000-acre development in North Fort Worth.
The news comes amid another big announcement involving Sheridan and North Texas. As recently reported by The Dallas Express, Paramount Pictures selected the city of Ferris, 20 miles south of Dallas, as a key filming location for its new Yellowstone spinoff, Rio Palo.
“This is an unprecedented time for film in Fort Worth. We’ve always been a great option for productions with diverse locations and a really talented local crew base, but now we have that infrastructure that’s been our missing piece,” Fort Worth Film Commissioner Taylor Hardy said about the new campus, per CBS.
The new facility can accommodate four large-scale productions simultaneously. The milestone space is expected to deliver a boost to the local economy and include post-production suites, HVAC-equipped sound stages, and areas that can be used to construct additional sets and props.
“We know that for a large-scale show like this their budgets can range from a million a day or even higher, so that’s touching everything from real estate agents to doctors, police officers that are hired to work on set, construction crews, so really film production is supporting our business in Fort Worth,” Hardy said.
According to Hillwood, filming for the second season of the popular show Landmand is already taking place. The show is estimated to have created nearly 4,000 jobs in the area, including over 1,000 for the crew alone. Season one was said to have included a budget of around $150 million, according to Sheridan.
Sheridan, who was raised in Cranfills Gap, southwest of Dallas, says the new project “is about reclaiming the independence and grit that built this industry in the first place,” per D Magazine.
According to Sheridan, Texas offers “the space to dream big, the freedom to build fast, and a community that still believes storytelling matters.”