Sylvester Stallone is going back to Oklahoma.
Paramount+ has renewed its series Tulsa king for a second season.
Producer Taylor Sheridan’s latest scored a big number after it received a special Paramount Network preview following an episode of Yellowstone.
According to Paramount’s Nielsen figures, the numbers surpassed HBO’s House of the Dragon as Cable’s top-rated series debut this year, with 3.7 million viewers, including delayed viewing (and, of course, an 8 million viewer run-up from Yellowstone definitely helped).
Tulsa king scored as the number one new series of the year, surpassing all others including the Game of Thrones continuation House of the Dragon,said Chris McCarthy, President/CEO, Paramount Media Networks & MTV Entertainment Studios. “With his preview On Paramount Network, and on Paramount+, shattered records and brought us to our biggest new sign-up day in history – which is why we immediately green-lighted Season Two.
“Combining the incomparable Sylvester Stallone and Taylor Sheridan’s dark comedic spin on the beloved gangster genre, we’ve found our latest hit in Tulsa kingadded Tanya Giles, Chief Programming Officer, Paramount Streaming. “The series premiere on Paramount+ generated record signups thanks to our unique ability as Paramount Global to leverage the incredible capabilities of the Paramount Network. Yellowstone audience.”
Yellowstone opened earlier this month to about 12.1 million cross-platform viewers and has since risen to about 17 million viewers.
Tulsa king is from showrunner Terence Winter and stars Stallone as a mobster released from prison and exiled to Oklahoma to rebuild his crime empire. The show has received mixed to positive reviews, with critics and viewers generally praising Stallone’s affable performance, which the actor says is the closest role he’s ever played to himself.
“I’ve always wanted to play a gangster,” Stallone said THR. “But I wanted to play a unique mobster who doesn’t look like a mobster – at least not when you meet him. He is actually a man who likes to cooperate. I was thinking of Franz Kafka’s The metamorphosis. What if you woke up and now had a different profession, but had the same personality? That way you don’t automatically assume the cliché of a thug staring at you with dead eyes and (slips into his Rocky/Rambo speaking voice for a second – just to show off) does the deep voice. But if it has to get heavy, it gets really heavy. So I said, “I’m going to play him as close to myself as I’ve ever done in my life.”
Tulsa king streams on Paramount + on Sunday evenings.
