Tulsa King is an American comedy and crime drama television series created by Taylor Sheridan for the streaming platform Paramount+.

Stallone portrays Dwight "the General" Manfredi, an American Mafia caporegime who has been recently released from prison in New York and is sent to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he begins to set up a criminal organization.

The series also stars Andrea Savage, Martin Starr, Jay Will, Max Casella, Domenick Lombardozzi, Vincent Piazza, A. C. Peterson, Garrett Hedlund, and Dana Delany.

Annabella Sciorra, Tatiana Zappardino, Frank Grillo, and Neal McDonough joined the second-season main cast.

The series has proved to be a success by providing a television ratings boost during its broadcast on Paramount Network and setting viewership records on Paramount+.

Dwight "The General" Manfredi is the American Mafia capo from New York City who has just finished serving a 25-year prison sentence.

On December 6, 2021, it was reported Taylor Sheridan and Terence Winter were developing a series titled Kansas City for the digital streaming platform Paramount+.

[10] In 2022, Deadline Hollywood stated the show was given a straight-to-series order under the title Tulsa King to reflect the change in location.

[17][18] Sheridan chose not to use a conventional showrunner for the second season and instead decided to hire a director and executive producer to oversee day-to-day production.

[23] At the time the series was announced, Sylvester Stallone was participating in negotiations to star as Tulsa King's lead character Sal in his scripted television debut.

[24] In May, A. C. Peterson, Andrea Savage, Garrett Hedlund and Martin Starr were reported to be starring in the series;[26][27][28][29] they were followed in July by Dana Delany[30] and Annabella Sciorra in August.

[32] Stallone's daughter Scarlet appears in the series as Spencer, a barista and stable hand who is recruited to work with Dwight.

[43][44] Stallone was allegedly heard calling certain background actors "ugly", "tub of lard" and "fat guy with a cane".

[47] Zisk responded to the comments through TMZ by denying the statements were made and stating the casting agency had hired extras who were older than the requested age range.

[51] Thomas Mooneyham, a background actor on the series, stated he believed the comments were about him after he and another extra were replaced with younger people.

[22] The series' costume designer Suzanne McCabe based many outfits on the Gambino crime family and Franzese Crew, as well as photographs from newspaper clippings in the 1980s; she cited John Gotti as an inspiration.

[54] Sylvester Stallone was allowed to pick many elements of his own costumes, including bolo ties, jewelry and shoes.

[64] Filming on the second season occurred in the Atlanta, Georgia, suburb Norcross, using Eagle Rock Studios for sound stages.

The website's consensus reads: "Tulsa King's stale comedy sometimes feels like ordering spaghetti with marinara and instead getting egg noodles and ketchup, but Sylvester Stallone still commands the screen with his swaggering charm.

"[92] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 65 out of 100, based on 28 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.

[97] Los Angeles Times writer Robert Lloyd called the series "likeable", commending its use of comedy and character focus.

[102] Fienberg goes on to state: "the first two episodes definitely give the impression of being something that Sheridan, Paramount+'s golden goose at this point, gestated between work on 15 different Yellowstone sequels and prequels".

[95] Writing for the National Public Radio (NPR) talk show Fresh Air, David Bianculli compared the formula of Tulsa King to that of Yellowstone and noted the "sense of time passing and the importance of family".

[103] Stephan Lee with The Wrap said there is a "distinct straight-to-DVD quality to Tulsa King" but suggests the series stands on its own and is only poor when compared to Sheridan's and Winter's other works.

Reviewing the first two episodes for Variety, Joshua Alston credited most of the series' success to Stallone, stating: "Tulsa King isn't a great show with him, but it would be far less interesting without him".

[93] USA Today writer Kelly Lawler criticized both the overall concept and Stallone saying he is "probably the king of something, but it's certainly not Tulsa, Oklahoma", and called the show "bad Goodfellas fan fiction".

[108] The Quapaw Nation issued a statement during the broadcast of Tulsa King's second season, criticizing its portrayal of fictional tribal leaders in criminal conspiracies.

They stated that production members did not give the tribe the chance to review the potential use of a fictionalized portrayal of themselves and that it "constituted cultural appropriation".