There’s a reason Taylor Sheridan gets paid well these days. The incredibly prolific “Yellowstone” TV writer/producer has four shows on the air this year alone, with several more on the way.
This weekend sees the launch of a fifth season of “Yellowstone” and the new Sylvester Stallone-led “Tulsa King”, with both arriving on screens on Sunday. Talking up ‘Tulsa’, Sheridan’s producing partner David Glasser offered a surprising revelation about the new series.
He tells THR that Sheridan cranked out the first draft of the “Tulsa King” pilot in less than 24 hours after a casual conversation about Stallone’s wish to play a gangster. Glasser says:
“Taylor starts to spitball the idea of a fish out of water story for an hour. Then, Saturday afternoon at 4 p.m., he goes, ‘Check your inbox.’ There is a script he’s already written called ‘Kansas City King,’ and it’s incredible.”
The pair pitched Stallone the series that Monday, with Terence Winter coming on board as showrunner shortly afterwards. Winter says once Sheridan sent the plot off to Glasser, he considered the show off of his hands: “Taylor said: ‘It’s your baby, I just have visitation rights.'”
Winter adds he was also more than happy to listen to Stallone’s input for the series, too:
“With Stallone, you’re getting a writer, a director, a producer, an editor – he’s got great ideas, and he’s got strong opinions about things, and he’s been doing this for a really long time at the highest possible level. He’s also been in his own skin for so long that he knows what works and knows what he does well.”
Stallone stars in the series as Dwight ‘The General’ Manfredi, a mafioso enforcer exiled by his crime family to Oklahoma shortly after his release from prison. Soon, Dwight aims to build a crime empire of his own in the state.
“Tulsa King” will be available to all Paramount+ subscribers, with the first two episodes also being made available via the Paramount Network.
