Years after wanting to star in a mafia project of his own, Sylvester Stallone finally landed the golden jackpot with Taylor Sheridan’s Tulsa King. Easily enough, his performance after getting cast was so breathtaking that the series didn’t take long to get on the fans’ best side. But for now, it’s only a stand-alone series, the second season of which will be arriving on Paramount+ soon.
But what if Sheridan were to give this star-studded saga the same treatment that he gave to his ranch-y Yellowstone lore? While the showrunner hasn’t confirmed it yet, the programming chief has already expressed her wish. And if this ends up happening, then it could result in a prequel show for Dwight with Milo Ventimiglia playing the younger version of Stallone’s protagonist.
Paramount+ Programming Chief is Open to Give Tulsa King the Yellowstone Treatment
Initially launched in November 2022 with its first season, Tulsa King has been gaining some of the best reviews from fans worldwide. While critics have given it a 79% on Rotten Tomatoes, the audience isn’t holding back as they deem it worthy of a 91% approval rating. If anything, this success even led to its sequel season, which will be hitting the screens in September this year.
Talking about “success,” this series seems likely to get a whole spin-off series of itself. This came after the chief programming officer of Paramount+, Tanya Giles, openly expressed her approval of the possibility of doing so. During Paramount+’s presentation at TCA last year in 2023, she told IndieWire:
The short answer is absolutely. We’re open to the possibilities, everything.
According to her, this “everything” includes them transforming the Sylvester Stallone-led smash-hit saga into a full-blown spin-off spawning franchise.
As she continued to say:
What we love to do is take this valuable IP and turn anything into a franchise because we believe there’s a world of storytelling to be told that the audience can enjoy, and they love the characters. Let’s see where it can take us.
That’s not all. Adding to this, Giles continued to express how “the huge success” that this series has been met with has “open[ed] up possibilities with Taylor Sheridan, who consistently, his mind works in terms of universes and backstories, so I think there’s always a possibility that there’s more to that universe and more to that story. More to come there.”
Inevitably enough, her words make it sound like they’re willing to give this crime drama series the same treatment that was given to Yellowstone. This is because the Kevin Costner-led saga not only has two prequel spin-off series, 1883 and 1923, but it is also set to get two more additions: Another prequel series, 1944, and a sequel one, 2024.
That being said, having this particular saga transformed into a franchise seems like an idea sooner or later about to materialize (even though Taylor Sheridan hasn’t commented on this yet) if it treks on a similar path as the ranch-y Western series. But that’s not a bad idea and for one too many reasons, as long as they take the right approach to it all.
Tulsa King Getting a Spin-off Series Could Actually Be a True Gift
Although nothing has been confirmed or greenlit as of yet, assuming that Sheridan agrees with the studios and decides to expand the Tulsa King franchise isn’t quite a bad idea. For one reason why, the mastermind could transform this idea into a spin-off series that encaptures Stallone’s character Dwight ‘The General’ Manfredi’s past.
Presuming that this happens (since it’s Sheridan’s verse and he more or less gets the final say), he could bring in actor Milo Ventimiglia to play a younger version of Stallone’s character to cover his story arc. Of course, this would prove to be a worthwhile decision since Ventimiglia has also previously perfectly embodied Stallone’s son in 2006’s Rocky Balboa.
Then there are all the other fans supporting this argument and wanting a prequel spin-off series for the same on Reddit. Here’s what they’re saying:
All of this being said, if Sheridan’s genius decides on this approach (or a similar one) for the Stallone-led crime drama, then it could result in a sheerly entertaining to the core experience for fans. Then again, looking at the mastermind’s previous works, there’s hardly anything that could go wrong if this series expands into a prequel-sequel spawning franchise as well, no?
Tulsa King season 2 hits the screens on September 15, 2024, while season 1 is available to be streamed on Paramount Plus.
