Sylvester Stallone’s Tulsa King Exists In The Yellowstone Universe?
Tulsa King star Andrea Savage confirms that Tulsa King and Yellowstone are not set in the same narrative.
In a recent interview with popculture.com, Tulsa King‘s Andrea Savage said that although the series was created by Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan, the fish-out-of-water story “a hundred percent” does not take place in the same shared universe. The brand new Paramount+ series stars Sylvester Stallone as Dwight “The General” Manfredi, a New York mobster who is released from prison after 25 years and is immediately sent to Tulsa, Oklahoma by his mafia bosses.
The mafiosi-in-the-midwest tale has recently brought in Paramount+’s record number of single-day subscriber sign-ups, according to the streamer, giving the network it’s highest number of new members in one day since it’s relaunch. Chief Programming Officer Tanya Giles said that the combination of expanding the Taylor Sheridan universe with originals like Tulsa King and the urgency of local-market football games has propelled Paramount’s growth.
Despite being the the brainchild of Taylor Sheridan and Terence Winter of The Sopranos fame, who share writing and producing duties for the series, actress Andrea Savage says that the series definitely does not take place in the same world.
In the show, once Manfredi is sent to Tulsa to set up a new criminal enterprise, he begins to develop and recruit a new kind of crew, one that looks very different than the NYC wise guys we’ve met many times over in television and film. And this would appear to be the whole point behind Tulsa King. It’s now up to him to make sure he can build enough power in Tulsa to stave off any threats that might be coming from New York or elsewhere.
If Taylor Sheridan’s work on Yellowstone is any indication, this one could get pretty bloody and violent before it’s all said and done
Following the show’s release, review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported a 73% approval rating, with the critical consensus describing the series as a cheap knockoff. “Sylvester Stallone still commands the screen with his swaggering charm, but Tulsa King’s stale comedy often feels like ordering spaghetti with marinara and instead getting egg noodles and ketchup,” the site said. But fans don’t seem to agree, giving the series an 88% audience score.
Along with Sylvester Stallone, the cast includes Max Casella as Armand Truisi, Domenick Lombardozzi as Don Charles Invernizzi, Vincent Piazza as Vince Antonacci, and A.C. Peterson as Pete Invernizzi. Jay Will, Andrea Savage, Martin Starr, Garrett Hedlund, Dana Delany as Margaret, and Annabella Sciorra also star.
For Sylvester Stallone, this will be his first foray into scripted series television for his entire career. It used to be that television shows, or starring in them at least, signaled the end of an actor’s movie career, but the entertainment landscape has totally changed in that respect. In what some are calling a new Golden Age of television, there is so much quality content, and some of the best behind-the-lens talent are taking their work to streaming services, so we’re able to see bigger stars acting in longer-format stories.
From the audience reception to Tulsa King, and it coming from the creator of the massively popular and critically-acclaimed Yellowstone, it looks as though Stallone has joined the ranks of streaming stars.
