Robert Redford, best known as a leading man and founder of the Sundance Film Festival, was also a passionate champion of independent and low-budget storytelling behind the camera. This extended to Skinwalkers, a 2002 PBS television film he executive produced, adapted from Tony Hillerman's novel and written for the screen by Redford's son James, which he considered a personal dream project despite the industry's lack of enthusiasm for it.

Redford had previously produced The Dark Wind in 1991, another Hillerman adaptation, and returned to the author's work with Skinwalkers hoping to launch a low-budget mystery series in the spirit of classics like The Thin Man or Charlie Chan. He told Deseret News he was surprised Hollywood didn't embrace the idea, and admitted he "struggled with Tony's pieces for many, many years," partly due to weak support for standalone Native American stories. Despite this resistance, Skinwalkers became PBS's most-watched broadcast of 2002, reflecting Redford's long-standing commitment to Native representation, which he later continued as executive producer on 2022's Dark Winds.