Taylor Sheridan brought new life to the Western genre with Yellowstone, his epic family saga that proved so successful it spawned a number of prequels following the Dutton family throughout different time periods. And while he’s still busy exploring the darker side of the cowboy myth through leading men like Kevin Costner and Harrison Ford, Sheridan has also scored another hit in Tulsa King, a mobster drama and starring vehicle for Sylvester Stallone which is heading into its second season.
Stallone plays Dwight Manfredi, a.k.a. “The General,” a mafia capo who is released from a lengthy prison sentence at the start of the show. He is then sent to Tulsa, Oklahoma by his employers, the Invernizzi crime family, with the task of expanding their operations within the city.
Tulsa King includes plenty of Sheridan’s trademark violence and gritty realism, leading some viewers to wonder if the story of Manfredi and the Invernizzis is based on real life. It’s not—while the show draws on the tropes of mob stories, the Invernizzis are completely fictional—but the origin of the TV show itself is a fascinating story.
Sheridan is known for being a prolific screenwriter, penning a huge amount of Yellowstone, its spinoffs, and Mayor of Kingstown by himself. So you’d be forgiven for thinking that when it came to coming up with a new show on top of all that, he’d bring in a writing partner. But that’s not how it happened.
According to Yellowstone co-creator David Glassner, upon hearing that Stallone was eager to work on a project similar to The Sopranos where he could play a mobster, Sheridan withdrew and immediately began outlining the concept for a series in which a gangster arrives in a brand new city and sets up shop—and wrote the pilot episode in just one day.
“Taylor starts to spitball the idea of a fish out of water story for an hour,” said Glassner. “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.”
From there, Sheridan hired producer Terence Winter to act as showrunner, and they worked closely with Stallone to bring some of the actor’s own personality to the character of Dwight.
“In the original concept, Dwight was a thug,” Stallone said. “A tough, strong-arm guy. His name was like Tony or Sal — that kind of thing. Then we started adding things like: How do you get sentimentality in there? It’s about the journey. It’s the inability to be recognized or taken seriously, or about pride or hope — those kind of things.”