'Tulsa King' Adds Frank Grillo And New EP, Promotes Two

 

It’s been a busy, if not utterly and suddenly chaotic time for the Taylor Sheridan-created Paramount+ series Tulsa King. But that chaotic part might be better off as its own article as to not minimize its importance. Production has started on the series’s second season, which will film on-location in Oklahoma but also in Atlanta and has inexplicably been reclassified from drama to comedy. The season’s cast has at the very least reached a crossroads…scratch that, crossbones casting Frank Grillo as a new series regulars as Annabella Sciorra and Tatiana Zappardino ascend from recurrers.

Sylvester Stallone stars on Tulsa King as New York mafia capo Dwight “The General” Manfredi, who, after spending 25 years in prison, is unceremoniously exiled by his boss and relocated to Tulsa, Oklahoma. Realizing the betrayal by his mob family was most certainly for their own interests over his, Dwight slowly builds a ragtag crew to help him establish a new criminal empire. Sciorra plays Manfredi’s younger sister Joanne, while Zappardino plays his estranged daughter Tina Manfredi-Grieger, likely bringing deeper exploration for both relationships in the new season. They are now welcomed into an ensemble that includes Andrea Savage, Garrett Hedlund, Dana Delany, Martin Starr, Max Casella, Domenick Lombardozzi, Vincent Piazza, Jay Will, and A.C. Peterson.

Grillo, who is known from the Purge movies and as Brock Rumlow aka Crossbones in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, will play Bill Bevilaqua, a Kansas City mobster with interests in Tulsa. The actor is getting ready to move into the new DC Universe as Rick Flag Sr., starting with the animated Creature Commandos series premiering later this year on Max.

Meanwhile, Craig Zisk has been brought on as the director/executive producer that serves as the show’s pseudo-showrunner position arranged following the net move of showrunner Terence Winter into solely being a writer on top of continuing as executive producer. This practice is common among Taylor Sheridan’s handful of other series at 101 Studios. In his 30 year career, his directing credits of Parks and Recreation and Brooklyn Nine-Nine might be highlighted, but he’s also done a lot of work in Paramount circles, especially Showtime, including Weeds, Nurse Jackie, Shameless, House of Lies, United States of Tara, and the now-Prime Video series American Rust. He also has episodes of CBS series The Good Wife and Elementary to his name, as well as Paramount+’s own Tell Me A Story and Halo. He’s also been executive producer on some of these and others.

In addition to Sheridan, Zisk, Winter and Stallone, David C. Glasser, Ron Burkle, Bob Yari, David Hutkin, Braden Aftergood and Keith Cox also serve as executive producers. Tulsa King season 2 is expected to premiere this fall on Paramount+.

Source: Deadline (1, 2)