Forget ‘Yellowstone,’ This Epic Book Series Should Launch the Next Great Western Franchise
The novel and the short story have long been the bread and butter of the Western genre. Plenty of your favorite on-screen Old West tales have spawned directly from or been inspired by them, and now it’s time for Hollywood to look to the page once more. Now that Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone Universe has evolved beyond the creator himself, it’s time for “America’s Storyteller” to finally get his due on the small screen. We’re, of course, talking about famed pulp Western author Louis L’Amour, who penned an impressive catalog of novels in his day. But for the best book to start with for a new made-for-TV franchise, we’d have to go with The Daybreakers, the first published installment of his popular series of novels revolving around the Sackett family.
Louis L’Amour’s Sackett Series Ought to Be the Next Western Hit — Starting With ‘The Daybreakers’
Okay, L’Amour fanatics out there are probably already riding to the comment section to remind us that The Daybreakers (along with material from Sackett) had previously been adapted as a miniseries back in 1979 with Tom Selleck, Sam Elliott, and Jeff Osterhage (who later reunited for another L’Amour adaptation). That’s true, and we’ve even highlighted that attempt in the past. But just because something was done once doesn’t mean that a hungry streamer shouldn’t be dissuaded from tackling it again, especially if it leads to more L’Amour adaptations going forward. As the first installment in L’Amour’s series of 17 official Sackett novels that tie to the eponymous family, the tale follows brothers Tyrel and Orrin Sackett as they leave their Tennessee home to make a new life for themselves out West, where their older brother, Tell, has already migrated to (as explored in Sackett). As they find themselves in conflict with the people living on the land, they end up in the New Mexico Territory, where they start their own ranch, which comes with a heap of difficulties of its own.
Collider Exclusive · Taylor Sheridan Universe Quiz
Which Taylor SheridanShow Do You Belong In?
Yellowstone · Landman · Tulsa King · Mayor of Kingstown
Four worlds. All of them brutal, complicated, and built on power, loyalty, and the price of survival. Taylor Sheridan doesn’t write heroes — he writes people who do what they have to do and live with the cost. Ten questions will reveal which one of his worlds you were made for.
Yellowstone
Landman
Tulsa King
Mayor of Kingstown
FIND YOUR WORLD →
01
Where does your power come from?
In Sheridan’s world, everyone has leverage. The question is what kind.
ALand, legacy, and a name that’s been feared and respected for generations.
BKnowing the deal better than anyone else in the room — and being willing to walk away first.
CReputation. I’ve earned it the hard way, and everyone in the room knows it.
DBeing the only person both sides will talk to. That makes me indispensable — and dangerous.
NEXT QUESTION →
02
Who do you put first, no matter what?
Loyalty in Sheridan’s universe is always absolute — and always costly.
AFamily — blood or chosen. The ranch, the name, the people who carry it with me.
BThe company — or whoever’s signing the cheques. Loyalty follows the contract.
CMy crew. The men who stood with me when it counted — I don’t abandon them for anything.
DMy community — even when my community is a powder keg and I’m the only thing stopping it from blowing.
NEXT QUESTION →
03
Someone crosses a line. How do you respond?
Every Sheridan protagonist has a line. What matters is what happens after it’s crossed.
AQuietly, decisively, and in a way that sends a message to everyone watching.
BI outmanoeuvre them legally, financially, and politically before they even know I’ve moved.
CDirectly. Old school. You cross me, you hear about it to your face — and then you deal with the consequences.
DI absorb it, calculate the fallout, and find the move that keeps the whole system from collapsing.
NEXT QUESTION →
04
Where do you feel most in your element?
Sheridan’s worlds are as much about place as they are about people.
AWide open land — mountains, sky, silence. Somewhere you can see trouble coming from a mile away.
BThe oil fields of West Texas — brutal, lucrative, and indifferent to whoever happens to be standing on top of them.
CA mid-size city where the rules haven’t quite caught up yet — fertile ground for someone with vision and nerve.
DA rust-belt town built around a prison — where everyone’s life is shaped by what’s inside those walls.
NEXT QUESTION →
05
How do you feel about operating in the grey?
Nobody in a Sheridan show has clean hands. The question is how they carry the dirt.
AI do what has to be done to protect what’s mine. I’ll answer for it eventually — but not today.
BGrey is just business. The line moves depending on what’s at stake, and I move with it.
CI have a code — it’s not the law’s code, but it’s mine, and I don’t break it.
DI’ve made peace with it. Keeping the peace requires compromises most people don’t have the stomach for.
NEXT QUESTION →
06
What are you actually fighting to hold onto?
Every Sheridan character is fighting a war. The real question is what they’re defending.
AA way of life that the modern world is doing everything it can to erase.
BMy position — and the leverage that comes with being the person everyone needs to close a deal.
CRelevance. I’ve been away, I’ve been written off — and I’m proving that was a mistake.
DWhatever fragile order I’ve managed to build — because without it, everything burns.
NEXT QUESTION →
07
How do you lead?
Authority in Sheridan’s world is never given — it’s established, maintained, and constantly tested.
ABy example and force of will. People follow me because they believe in what I’m protecting — and because they know what happens if they don’t.
BThrough negotiation and leverage. I don’t need people to like me — I need them to need me.
CBy being the smartest, most experienced person in the room and making sure everyone quietly knows it.
DBy being the calm centre of a situation that would spiral without me — and accepting that nobody thanks you for it.
NEXT QUESTION →
08
Someone new arrives and tries to change how things work. Your reaction?
Every Sheridan show has an outsider disrupting an established order. Sometimes that outsider is you.
AThey’ll learn. Or they won’t. Either way, the land was here before them and it’ll be here after.
BI figure out what they want, what they’re worth, and whether they’re an asset or a problem — fast.
CI was the outsider once. I give them a chance — one — to show they understand respect.
DNew players destabilise everything I’ve built. I assess the threat and manage it before it manages me.
NEXT QUESTION →
09
What has your position cost you?
Nobody gets to where these characters are without paying for it. The bill is always personal.
AMy family’s peace — maybe their innocence. The ranch demands everything, and I’ve let it take too much.
BRelationships, time, any version of a normal life. The job eats everything that isn’t nailed down.
CYears. Decades in some cases. Time I can’t get back — but I’m not done yet.
DMy conscience, mostly. And the ability to ever fully trust anyone on either side of the wall.
NEXT QUESTION →
10
When it’s over, what do you want people to say?
Sheridan’s characters all know the ending is coming. The question is what they leave behind.
AThat I held the line. That the land is still ours and everything I did was worth it.
BThat I was the best at what I did and that no deal ever got closed without me at the table.
CThat I built something real, somewhere nobody expected it, and I did it on my own terms.
DThat I kept the peace when nobody else could — and that the town is still standing because of it.
REVEAL MY SHOW →
Sheridan Has Spoken
You Belong In…
The show that claimed the most of your answers is the world you were built for. If two tied, both are shown — you’re complicated enough to straddle two Sheridan universes.
Yellowstone
Landman
Tulsa King
Mayor of Kingstown
You are a Dutton — or you might as well be. You understand that some things are worth protecting at any cost, and that the modern world’s indifference to history, to land, to legacy, is not something you’re willing to accept quietly. You lead from the front, you carry your family’s weight without complaint, and when someone threatens what’s yours, you don’t escalate — you finish it. You’re not cruel. But you are absolute. In Yellowstone’s world, that combination of ferocity and loyalty doesn’t make you a villain. It makes you the only thing standing between everything that matters and everyone who wants to take it.
You thrive in the chaos of high-stakes negotiation, where the money is enormous, the margins are thin, and the wrong word in the wrong room can cost everyone everything. You’re a fixer — the person called when a situation is already on fire and needs someone with the nerve to walk into it. West Texas oil country rewards exactly what you are: sharp, adaptable, unsentimental, and absolutely clear-eyed about what people want and what they’ll do to get it. You’re not naive enough to think this world is fair. You’re smart enough to be the one deciding who it’s fair to.
You are a Dwight Manfredi — someone who has served their time, paid their dues, and arrived somewhere unexpected with nothing but their reputation and their wits. You adapt without losing yourself. You build loyalty through respect rather than fear, though you’re not above reminding people that the two aren’t mutually exclusive. Tulsa King is for people who are still standing when everyone assumed they’d be finished — who find, in an unfamiliar place, that they’re more capable than the world gave them credit for. You don’t need a throne. You build one, wherever you happen to land.
You carry the weight of a system that is broken by design, and you do it anyway — because someone has to, and because you’re the only one positioned to do it without the whole thing collapsing. Mike McLusky’s world is for people who are comfortable operating where there are no good options, only less catastrophic ones. You speak every language: law enforcement, criminal, political, human. That fluency makes you invaluable and it makes you a target. You’ve made your peace with both. Mayor of Kingstown belongs to people who understand that keeping the peace is not the same as being at peace — and who do the job regardless.
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The Daybreakers is often considered one of L’Amour’s very best, and if the first season of a Sackett-based series were to follow the tale, it could learn from its previous TV adaptation by splicing the narrative with Tell’s adventures in Sackett, leading to the trio’s reunion either in the conclusion or in subsequent seasons. As the perfect foundation for a new Western franchise, multiple seasons of Sackett-themed material could be mined from L’Amour’s thrilling novels. This is only the beginning of the story, as Tyrel and Orrin (and Tell, by extension) find themselves in the middle of plenty of exciting adventures in the novels afterward, with other members of their extended family — such as Nolan Sackett, Milo Talon, Galloway Sackett, and Lando Sackett, among others — showing up as the series progresses, perhaps most notably in The Sackett Brand. The first season of a proposed Sackett series could easily begin with The Daybreakers before expanding to the other novels in subsequent years. It would certainly be a multi-season Western endeavor.
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Reach for the sky!
If The Daybreakers were successful in laying the foundation for this long-form series, L’Amour’s Sackett prequels like Sackett’s Land, which follows Barnabas Sackett in the 17th century, offer plenty of thrilling flashback possibilities to the family’s origins in the New World. Or, to take a cue from Yellowstone or The CW’s Walker, it could expand with a family history prequel series akin to what 1883 and Walker: Independence were for those programs. This would be a fascinating and diligent way to bring such an iconic book series to the screen after half a century of love and support from fans, and to do so with basically no limit to how many seasons could be produced given the sheer volume of material to work with. Although there are 17 official entries in the Sackett series, there are 32 novels total that L’Amour penned that connect to the Sackett family, making miniseries or streaming film spin-offs a real possibility (Son of a Wanted Man, for instance, could easily be a one-off made-for-TV movie that connects with the larger series itself).
The ‘Sackett’ Series Is a Western Gold Mine Full of Untapped Television Potential
L’Amour was considered a master storyteller for a reason, and even in the face of John Wayne pictures like Hondo, many prefer his novelization of the motion picture to the film itself. He knew how to tell an incredible tale that evoked everything viewers love about the genre (though he never fully limited himself to the Western). The Daybreakers is a perfect example of this. In just over 200 pages, L’Amour tells a riveting tale about two brothers who will stop at nothing to make a new life for themselves and their family. No matter the challenges, they wrestle with them together, always coming out on top.
Those who love Westerns typically adore L’Amour for his authentic characters and general attention to historical details. Although he wrote the Sackett novels out of order, they share a continuity and a brand that has come to be known as one of the greatest Western sagas in popular literature. That said, adapting The Daybreakers or any of the Sackett books is no small task, and so, whatever network, streamer, or studio decides to do so must do so only with the understanding that authenticity is exactly what audiences are looking for. If the production can’t capture the spirit of L’Amour, then it would be better not to do it at all — this is why so many of us are on the edge of our seats for the upcoming Flint. For any ambitious showrunners or developers looking to bring this fabulous multi-century tale to life, The Sackett Companion will be your greatest resource beyond the novels themselves.
The Sacketts
Release Date
1979 – 1979-00-00
Directors
Robert Totten
تم النشر: 2026-07-03 04:04:00
مصدر: collider.com
