Taylor Sheridan Meets Taken In The Upcoming Western With A 10/10 Liam Neeson Replacement

Published Sep 30, 2026, 4:31 PM EDT Cathal Gunning has been writing about movies, television, culture, and politics online and in print since 2017. He worked as a Senior Editor in Adbusters Media Foundation from 2018-2019 and wrote for WhatCulture in early 2020. He has been a Senior Features Writer for ScreenRant since 2020. While one upcoming Western sounds like Taken reimagined by Yellowstone's Taylor Sheridan, the movie’s Liam Neeson replacement is what makes it truly exciting for genre fans. Before the Yellowstone franchise accounted for almost every Neo-Western show on streaming, Taylor Sheridan’s screenplays for Sicario, Hell or High Water, and Wind River had already proven he was one to watch in the genre. Sheridan’s movies blended thoroughly modern settings and contemporary characters with the structure of old-fashioned Westerns, crafting a bloody, R-rated mix that proved irresistible for critics. His shows had a harder time impressing reviewers, with efforts like the prison drama Mayor of Kingstown being written off as overwrought, miserable, and pseudo-intellectual in comparison to earlier hits like Oz and Orange is the New Black. However, as much as Sheridan’s shows may have had a hard time winning over critics, the writer/director’s work clearly appeals to a large audience. As of 2026, Sheridan has a whopping eleven seasons of TV in the works between Tulsa King, its spinoff Frisco King, the Yellowstone sequels Marshals and Dutton Ranch, the spy thriller Lioness, the family drama The Madison, and the Billy Bob Thornton vehicle Landman. Thus, it should come as no surprise that director Potsy Ponciroli’s upcoming movie The Rescue is borrowing from Sheridan’s winning formula. The Rescue Is Like If Taylor Sheridan Remade Taken Directed by Motor City’s Potsy Ponciroli, The Rescue follows a former rodeo cowboy whose daughter is kidnapped and held for ransom. With only his daughter’s dog to help him, The Rescue’s hero takes the law into his own hands as he sets out to single handedly rescue her from her captors. With a cast that includes Josh Lucas, Tim Blake Nelson, Josh Duhamel, and Hassie Harrison of Yellowstone fame, the action thriller isn’t short on star power. However, it is The Rescue’s appealing blend of a classic premise and a Neo-Western style that makes the movie truly appealing. While Sheridan’s spy series Lioness proves it is unfair to pigeonhole the writer/director as nothing more than the patron saint of the Neo-Western, the fact remains that the majority of his shows and movies fit this blueprint. In the last decade, Sheridan’s Lawmen: Bass Reeves and the Yellowstone prequels 1883 and 1923 all offered viewers traditional, old-fashioned period Western shows. Meanwhile, Tulsa King, Yellowstone, Marshals, Dutton Ranch, Mayor of Kingstown and Landman could all be categorized as Neo-Westerns. Even 2021’s underrated survival thriller Those Who Wish Me Dead played out like a modernized version of True Grit. However, most attempts to cash in on this trend by other writers and directors have fallen short when it comes to connecting with audiences. Netflix’s American Primeval and The Abandons only lasted one season apiece, in contrast with Yellowstone spawning two sequels and another upcoming prequel in the long-awaited series 1944. Although Duhamel’s own Netflix series Ransom Canyon secured a second season renewal in 2026, that small-town Western romance has as much in common with Virgin River or Sullivan’s Crossing as it does with Yellowstone, meaning there still aren’t many shows that recapture the blend of Dynasty/ Dallas-style campy soap operatics and brutal, R-rated grit that made Sheridan’s family saga a hit. The Rescue Has A Bunch Of Taylor Sheridan Connections Fortunately, while The Rescue might not come from the pen of Sheridan himself, the upcoming contemporary Western thriller does share a whole host of similarities with the series. The Rescue’s main character, the cowboy Jamie Lee, is played by 1923’s Brandon Sklenar, while Josh Lucas played the younger version of Yellowstone’s patriarch John Dutton in the original show’s many flashbacks. Meanwhile, Hassie Harrison played Laramie in nine episodes of Sheridan’s series. The Rescue producer Tim McGraw also appeared in numerous episodes of Yellowstone and 1883, further cementing the links between the movie and Sheridan’s show. However, even if the movie didn’t have all these Sheridan-linked bonafides, The Rescue’s premise alone makes the revenge thriller sound like a compelling watch. It has been almost two decades since Liam Neeson’s iconic cult classic Taken was released in 2008, so a Western spin on the influential action thriller sounds like a winning genre update. In many ways, Taken already followed the contours of a traditional Western story, but its propulsive plot and urban setting made the thriller feel more like a straightforward action movie than The Rescue. All the links to Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone franchise, along with the fact that the main character is a literal cowboy, suggest that The Rescue will instead focus on its Western elements, and the movie has picked the perfect leading man for this job. Brandon Sklenar Is A Good Choice For The Rescue's 'Liam Neeson’ Image courtesy of MovieStillsDb Sklenar first rose to prominence starring in Yellowstone’s prequel 1923, where he proved he had the screen presence and charisma to lead a modern Western like The Rescue. His movie choices in the years since have been intriguing, with the star leading 2025’s clever comedy thriller Drop, a tense two-hander where his blind date starts receiving anonymous messages that blackmail her into poisoning Sklenar’s blissfully unaware whistleblower. While Drop toyed with the possibility that Sklenar’s character could have been a secret villain, his role in 2024’s It Ends With Us gave the star a chance to show off his more protective and endearing side. Just when viewers thought they had him figured out and Sklenar was clearly a romantic leading man, the twisty psychological thriller The Housemaid offered another side of the actor in its riotously unpredictable story. While Sheridan’s shows like Mayor of Kingstown have been called out for their repetitive, predictable writing style, Sklenar clearly doesn’t have the same problem when it comes to choosing roles. His upcoming Sheridan collaboration F.A.S.T. promises straightforward heroics from Sklenar, but The Rescue’s plot can see the star bring some dark edge and grit to an otherwise heroic role. Sklenar is an ideal casting choice for the modern Western, and the Taken-inspired premise of the action thriller makes for an appealing genre blend. Only time will tell whether The Rescue can live up to the promising mantle of “Taylor Sheridan's Yellowstone meets Taken,” but the Brandon Sklenar vehicle certainly seems to have all the right ingredients to pull this off. Release Date January 29, 2027 Director Potsy Ponciroli Writers John Fusco