Tulsa King, the new Paramount+ Original Series from Taylor Sheridan (Yellowstone, 1883, Mayor of Kingstown), was first streamed in November 13 exclusively on Paramount+.
When New York mafia capo Dwight “The General” Manfredi (Sylvester Stallone) is released from prison after 25 years, he’s unceremoniously exiled by his boss (his former boss’s son) to set up shop in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Realizing that his mob family may not have his best interests in mind, Dwight slowly builds a “crew” from a group of unlikely characters to help him establish a new criminal empire in a place that to him might as well be another planet.
Tulsa King follows New York mob boss Dwight “The General” Manfredi (Sylvester Stallone) as he is released from prison after 25 years and is unceremoniously exiled by his boss to settle in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Realizing that his mob family may not have his best interests in mind, Dwight slowly builds a new “team” out of a group of unlikely characters to help him establish a new criminal empire in a place that may well be for him. another planet.
How Sylvester Stallone Came to “Tulsa King”
Before Taylor Sheridan made a name for herself with “Yellowstone,” Sylvester Stallone was interested in having her write the script for “Rambo.” Stallone himself admits that he is about to retire from acting but agreed to participate in the series.
“I was getting lazy,” Stallone admits during a Zoom conference. “Then he was very, very successful with ‘Yellowstone,'” and the actor put the idea of the collaboration on the back burner.
Case closed? Not quite. Sheridan had an idea for a gangster series set in Tulsa, Oklahoma called “Tulsa King.” He thought Stallone would be great as a mobster who is released from prison and sent to Tulsa to run a branch of the business.
“He called me, told me the idea in about three seconds. I said, ‘I’m in,'” Stallone says. “It was very fast”.
Production was not slow either. Stallone, who is also an executive producer, says they produced 10 episodes of the series in a matter of months. “It was the equivalent of doing five ‘Rockys’ in a row: five two-hour movies with no break in between.”
Television, he adds, is “harder, faster and longer” than cinema. “You really have to be fast. You have to be unpredictable. The most important thing is that you have to maintain your energy.”
While playing a gangster was always a dream (Stallone was turned down as one of the extras in “The Godfather”), he never gave up. What made Dwight Manfredi, his character on “Tulsa King,” even more interesting was his past. “This is a very educated guy, he reads Marcus Aurelius, he reads Plato,” he says. “He’s a different animal than you’d normally see in a ‘gangster’ movie.”
The story of the “Tulsa King”
Manfredi’s exile comes as a surprise because he was loyal, kept his mouth shut, and took the blame for murder. That’s why he goes to prison.
“When he gets out of prison, he really expects some proper form of compensation,” says executive producer Terry Winter. “Instead, the chief’s son, who is now in charge, informs him that he is being sent to Tulsa, which, to him, might as well be another planet.”
There, he tries to rebuild a relationship with his daughter and team up with people who aren’t used to his New York ways.
“Tulsa King,” says Stallone, “is kind of like ‘Yellowstone.’ People get ‘Yellowstone’ because they understand the dynamic that these characters are going through.”
While Stallone doesn’t have a relationship with actual mobsters (“Half my family are mobsters,” he jokes), “I grew up with a lot of these mobsters and they’re very interesting. In Philly, you’re always bumping into them whether you want to or not, especially in South Philly. So I have the temperature, I have the idea, I have the attitude… and I understand life on the street very, very well”.
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