A Taylor Sheridan Western thriller has found a new audience on streaming. Sheridan is perhaps best known for creating the popular neo-Western television drama Yellowstone, which has spawned spinoffs including 1883, 1923, and the upcoming The Madison.

However, there is much more to the creator than the wide roster of Taylor Sheridan TV shows, which also includes Mayor of Kingstown, Tulsa King, Lioness, and Landman. He has also worked on a number of feature-length projects, either as a writer, a director, or both.

In addition to penning the screenplays for movies such as Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario and David Mackenzie’s Hell or High Water, he has directed projects including the Angelina Jolie vehicle Those Who Wish Me ᴅᴇᴀᴅ (which he also produced) and a neo-Western that has recently found a new streaming home.

Wind River Is Surging On Netflix

2017’s Wind River has found new life on Netflix. The movie, which was written and directed by Taylor Sheridan, follows wildlife officer Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner) and FBI agent Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olsen) trying to solve the murder of a young woman who was found ᴅᴇᴀᴅ in Wyoming.

The movie, which also features the late Graham Greene, Yellowstone star Gil Birmingham, and Sicario alumnus Jon Bernthal, was both a critical and commercial success. In addition to earning a Certified Fresh 87% Rotten Tomatoes score, Wind River grossed $45 million worldwide against a reported $11 million budget.

Netflix has now calculated their Top 10 list of their most-watched English-language movies worldwide for the week of September 1 through September 7. Shortly after appearing in the streamer’s library, Wind River rose to No. 9 on the chart thanks to 2.7 million viewers accumulating a total of 4.9 million viewing hours.

It occupies space on the chart alongside Netflix’s most-watched movie ever, KPop Demon Hunters (which is currently at No. 2 in its 12th week), as well as several other popular Netflix originals, including The Thursday Murder Club (No. 3) and Unknown Number: The High School Catfish (No. 1).

Wind River has managed to accomplish this in spite of the fact that it is only available on Netflix in the United States, whereas the majority of the тιтles above it are much more widely available. In fact, KPop Demon Hunters is in the Top 10 in 92 individual countries around the globe.

What This Means For Wind River

In addition to adding to its writer-director’s mᴀssive streaming success, the fact that Wind River has found a sizable streaming audience nearly a decade later could help spur progress on its sequel. Wind River: The Next Chapter reportedly wrapped production in April 2023, under the auspices of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier director Kari Skogland.

However, the Wind River sequel still hasn’t received an official release date. If the original Taylor Sheridan movie continues to thrive on Netflix, maintaining a place on the chart in the coming weeks, it could prove that there is still an audience for the project and encourage the sequel’s producers to make a push to finally release it in theaters.