Tulsa King: Everything We Know About The Sylvester Stallone Series
Sylvester Stallone and Taylor Sheridan's Tulsa King will stream on Paramount+ on November 22nd.
Tulsa King is coming on Paramount, adding to the stable of one of the best creators out there. Over the last couple of years, there’s been almost no one better at churning out cool stories on the small screen than Taylor Sheridan. Heck, he’s got one of the biggest series going right now with Yellowstone, putting Kevin Costner front and center for a story about the high stakes, and often deadly (at least in this version) world of cattle ranching in the American West.
Now it looks like Sheridan is going to take another Hollywood legend, and place us in a different, but possibly as violent (or worse) a world with Sylvester Stallone taking the lead in the upcoming Tulsa King.
The series is set to hit Paramount+ this fall and could offer another Taylor Sheridan experience with Sylvester Stallone holding down the lead role. Let’s take a look at everything we know about Tulsa King and what to expect from the series.
SYLVESTER STALLONE WILL PLAY A NEW YORK MOBSTER WHO MOVES TO OKLAHOMA
Tulsa King looks like it is offering another premise that will have us entering a somewhat new world, ready to be explored and possibly very violent. Those are some Taylor Sheridan hallmarks when it comes to his storytelling and we’ve seen it play out plenty before.
In this one, Sylvester Stallone is Dwight “The General” Manfredi, a high-ranking mafioso who is just finishing up a longer stint behind bars for his work with the family. Getting out he thinks he’s going to go right back to the streets in New York City, seeming to pick up where he left off. But the big bosses have a different plan for the guy and they resolve to send him to Oklahoma to lead up the criminal enterprise there.
This is, of course, a massive demotion for Sylvester Stallone’s character and he’s relegated to Tulsa to begin operations. There, according to the plot lines, 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 looks like we are going to get a fish out of water type show though Stallone’s character is more than up for the task. 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. And seeing as how we understand some about Taylor Sheridan’s process, this one could get pretty bloody and violent before it’s all said and done. Check out a clip Stallone put out on Instagram:
There’s also a good chance, considering how Sylvester Stallone as Manfredi comes into Tulsa with few contacts, we see how a criminal group is built from the ground up. It could be a fascinating look at the process by which gangsters operate.
SOPRANOS ALUMS ANNABELLA SCIORRA AND MAX CASELLA ARE IN THE TULSA KING CAST
Joining Sylvester Stallone and Taylor Sheridan in Tulsa King are a few other notables, some of whom already have some mob-related acting work under their belt. Max Casella stars in the series and he had a longer stint as Bennie on HBO’s The Sopranos, playing a younger member of Tony’s crew in the second half of the series.
Also from The Sopranos is Annabella Sciorra who played Gloria Trillo, Tony’s girlfriend from the show. She will play Joanne, the sister of Sylvester Stallone’s character.
There’s also Domenick Lombadozzi who will play Chickie Invernizzi on Tulsa King. He’s known best for his work on The Wire, though also had roles in A Bronx Tale when he was younger and The Irishman more recently.
Martin Starr, Garrett Hedlund, Tommy DeVito, and Dana Delaney help to round out some of the rest of the cast. It looks like they are part of the group in Tulsa that Manfredi is recruiting. Tulsa King and Taylor Sheridan have put together some bigger names for this series which could really offer a unique look at the differing criminal styles of the two cities, New York and Tulsa.
For Sylvester Stallone, this will be his first foray onto the smaller screen for a series in his entire career. It used to be that television shows, or starring in them at least, signaled the death of a movie career. But the landscape has totally changed in that respect.
Now, with so much quality content and some of the best behind-the-lens talent taking their work to streaming services, we are able to get some of the bigger stars in longer stories. That’s going to be the case here with Stallone.
THE TULSA KING TRAILER
The first full Tulsa King trailer was finally released and it offered the longest and most-in depth glimpse yet as to what we are getting with this series. It shows Sylvester Stallone reluctantly moving to Tulsa at the request of the New York Mafia higher-ups and then hitting the ground running in a place wholly unprepared for the gangster lifestyle.
The show looks very much like a fish-out-of-water scenario for everyone involved. Stallone’s character is adjusting to Tulsa’s relative innocence and the town is adjusting to the crime he is bringing into the mix. Frankly, it looks delightful.
TULSA KING WILL STREAM ON PARAMOUNT+ STARTING NOVEMBER 22ND
Like many of Taylor Sheridan’s other works, Tulsa King will be coming to Paramount+. Filming has already happened for the initial episodes with cameras starting to roll back in the spring. And it really won’t be long now until we actually see Sylvester Stallone and company in Tulsa King.
The release date is November 22nd for the show and it will be timed with the fifth season of Yellowstone on both Paramount+ and Paramount Network. At times, this process of network and streaming has been a confusing one for the company, but for Tulsa King we should see the show on both.
In this way, the company is trying to line it up for the very best chance of success. Considering the overwhelming popularity of Yellowstone, having the two series in conjunction with each other gives Tulsa King a major leg up. And seeing as how they are both from Taylor Sheridan, the audience overlap should, for sure, be there.
