Taylor Sheridan and Paramount have come together with the next generation of scripted shows geared toward an adult audience thanks to the massive success of the flagship series, “Yellowstone.” The writer/producer is also behind the new mob series “Tulsa King” at Paramount+ from showrunner Terence Winter (“Sopranos”) that stars Sylvester Stallone as a New York gangster who is essentially banished by his crime family after spending 25 years in prison and told to set up his own syndicate in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
While the series has only started, airing to mixed-to-positive reviews, the impressive audience response to the Paramount+ original has landed a season two pick-up from the streamer. Nielsen numbers provided by Paramount concluded that the show surpassed HBO Max’s wildly popular “House of The Dragon” after scoring 3.7 million viewers during the premiere. All thanks to a great lead-in from Sheridan’s extremely popular “Yellowstone” drama.
The supporting cast of “Tulsa King” includes Andrea Savage, Martin Starr, Jay Will, Max Casella, Domenick Lombardozzi, Garrett Hedlund, Vincent Piazza, A.C. Peterson, and Dana Delany.
Here is a synopsis of the series if you haven’t seen the show for yourself:
Stallone stars as Dwight “The General” Manfredi, a mobster who kept his trap shut for 25 years while in prison and who’s compensated for that loyalty to his mafia brethren in New York by getting shipped off to Tulsa. Once there, Dwight decides to take matters into his own hands and sets about assembling his own crew in an effort to create a rewarding, lucrative criminal world for himself in a town about as far away from his New York City home as he can imagine. The trailer reveals that Sheridan and Winter are going to deliver not only the thrills of the mafia story but some comedy, too. That’s evident when Dwight puts the squeeze on a marijuana dispensary, promising its owner he’ll keep the cops off his back, despite the dispensary being completely legal.
This early pick-up news indicates that Paramount+ sees a lucrative future with “Tulsa King,” given its popularity on the service compared to other originals. It doesn’t hurt that the series is a mix between the “Sopranos” and the humor of “Better Call Saul” sprinkled in. Since the first season only just began, it’s not entirely clear when the second season will be ready to drop. But either way, it’s a massive vote of confidence, and if they’re quick enough, production could easily kick off next year.