Amid the launch of Taylor Sheridan’s latest series, Landman, oil isn’t the only precious resource being discovered in Texas. Content from the venerable publication Texas Monthly has been enjoying an unprecedented boom of interest from Hollywood, with adapted projects ranging from the Paramount+ drama and Richard Linklater’s recent Netflix movie Hit Man to the HBO limited series Love & Death and the Discovery+ documentary series How to Create a Sex Scandal.
Why so much from the venerable 51-year-old magazine, and why lately? One reason is the entertainment zeitgeist has caught up to what Texas Monthly has always done well. The magazine has a long history of compelling and in-depth true crime reporting, particularly by award-winning writer Skip Hollandsworth (who wrote the piece that inspired Hit Man).
“He writes about murders and horrible things that have happened, but also manages to find a level of dark humor in the characters that come out of those stories and worlds,” says Megan Creydt, Texas Monthly’s executive producer for TV, film and podcasts.
The publication also made a concerted effort five years ago to evolve from a magazine into more of a “journalistic storytelling organization,” Creydt says, which included launching a podcast studio (Landman was based on a 12-episode show from 2019 titled Boomtown, hosted by Christian Wallace). There was also a representation shake-up, with Texas Monthly shifting to CAA under agent and Texas native Ann Blanchard. “She’s put together a whole team of scripted agents that we work with — we have a few feature agents and a couple of nonscripted agents,” Creydt notes. Such moves include making a first-look deal at HBO — where it helps that Max head of originals Sarah Aubrey is a former Texas Monthly intern.
And then there’s just the fact that the Lone Star State is arguably the most audaciously Americana state, one with a specific, larger-than-life personality. As the country’s second most populous state (behind California), it contains a wild mix of extreme wealth and dire poverty and dense cities and endless, scenic empty spaces. The result is a place that’s just a bottomless story generator for a publication that’s long been willing to give its talent months to work on a single piece (the writers and contributors also enjoy revenue sharing from stories that get picked up).
William Boyles Jr., the screenwriter behind such films as Cast Away and Apollo 13, co-founded Texas Monthly, so cinematic storytelling has always been part of the publication’s DNA. “It’s great narrative journalism,” Creydt says when asked to divulge the publication’s secret to its recent success. “There’s also an understanding in Hollywood that [it’s worth] paying attention to other parts of the country, and Texas is certainly its own world. There are so many rich characters and stories here you’re not going to find in a New York publication.”
The producer notes that part of Texas Monthly’s value isn’t just their newest stories, but their five-decade archive — the pieces that inspired Hit Man and Love & Death were 23 and 40 years old, respectively. “It’s really cool to be able to look at that archive and find stuff that resonates even now,” she says. “That’s a new thing for us — we really dug into the archive during the writer’s strike to help keep things going.”
This story first appeared in the Nov. 13 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
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