Enjoying Landman? You should create time for a forgotten Matt Damon movie that premiered 13 years ago. Made by Gus Van Sant (who also directed Damon in Good Will Hunting), Promised Land covers the latest professional quagmire of Steve Butler (Matt Damon), the golden boy at Global Crosspower Solutions. His employer specializes in extracting natural gas through fracking, and Butler has an excellent track record for persuading landowners to sign over drilling rights quickly and at a favorable rate.

Butler’s latest assignment is a tough one. It involves securing rights in an economically weak Pennsylvania farming town, whose residents take pride in passing family farms down from one generation to the next. Will he manage?

The film was a box office bomb, grossing just $12 million against a $15 million budget. However, it was named one of the top 10 films of 2012 by the National Board of Review. No one will love it more than Landman fans, given how thoroughly it explores the energy sector.

‘Promised Land’ Has Most of ‘Landman’s Key Ingredients

Promised Man and Landman are extremely identical. Audiences will notice the similarities right from the moment they are introduced to Butler. Like Tommy Norris, he is not only a top employee but also a charming negotiator, able to diffuse tense situations and warm his way into people’s hearts. Watch out for a scene where he tells the story of how his own small town died after the local Caterpillar assembly plant closed.

The Gus Van Sant film also has a strong industry focus, excavating plenty of valuable plots from both the office corridors and fields. The movie dwells on the resource extraction process known as hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”). Such a technique, and a few others, are employed in the Taylor Sheridan show, too.

Most importantly, both productions examine the challenges that stem from boomtown economics. We see how the possibility of sudden wealth creates anxiety, tension, and conflict among residents and big-time players. However, while Landman takes the “drill baby drill” route, Promised Land takes the activist route, an approach that made it unpopular among oil industry figures.

‘Promised Land’s Pro-Environment Approach Triggered Controversy

Promised Land was heavily criticized by the energy industry for its negative portrayal of fracking. Many felt the film popularized unfounded concerns about the resource extraction process. Among the top critics was Phelim McAleer, the director of the pro-fracking documentary, FrackNation, who argued that the film’s suggestion that fracking caused water to become contaminated was wrong. According to him, EPA scientists had conducted numerous investigations and never found anything wrong.

A September 2012 report by CNBC also revealed that residents of Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, where a huge chunk of Promised Land was filmed, had protested, writing in their social media group: “They filmed this movie in our backyard. They told us it would be fair to the drilling sector. It’s not.” The residents lashed out more, saying: “One of the things that really aggravates me is that they seem to have a very condescending view” of farmers as portrayed in the film. More concerns were also raised by the Independent Petroleum Association of America.

If you are often bothered by Landman‘s all-capitalist-all-the-time approach and its drill-baby-drill tone, Promised Land might just irrigate the soil of your crusader leanings. Although the stylish production and extraordinary performance by Matt Damon are compromised by occasional pedestrian subplots that struggle to tie up the disparate elements, the film is highly enjoyable. Important questions about the environment are raised, questions that the Paramount+ series never bothers with. Are the concerns valid? Fans of the TV show will definitely find themselves debating about several of the topics raised in the Gus Van Sant movie.