More than a year after veteran TV writer/producer Terence Winter stepped down as showrunner for Paramount+’s hit Sylvester Stallone vehicle, Tulsa King — amid “creative differences” — there is a report that Season 2 is moving forth without a traditional showrunner.
Per our sister site Deadline, Winter will remain an executive producer as well as write for the Taylor Sheridan-created mob drama, which was renewed for Season 2 after just three November 2022 outings and drove a record number of Paramount+ sign-ups. (Sheridan, Stallone, David C. Glasser, Ron Burkle, Bob Yari, David Hutkin, and Braden Aftergood also serve as EPs.) Season 2 will not have a traditional showrunner (like most of Sheridan’s series), but instead bring on a director/EP to help oversee things.
Winter’s new position reportedly will allow him to continue working closely with Stallone, who is a screenwriter of note himself, on scripts and dialogue, while also inching away from Sheridan’s immediate purview.
Winter — whose previous credentials include Boardwalk Empire (which he created) and The Sopranos (where he was an EP) — detailed in a November 2022 interview how his vision for Tulsa King differed from what Sheridan originally had in mind.
In Sheridan’s version, Stallone’s Dwight Manfredi had been “a low-level bag man” who “had never been to prison,” “didn’t have a family” and who was dispatched to Kansas City “as a reward for a lifetime of service,” Winter told Deadline.
Winter, however, “wanted to explore the idea of a 75-year-old man in the twilight of his years” “who wants to make something of his life.” And that version of Dwight “spent the last 25 years in jail and he’s fully expecting to be rewarded” when he instead gets sent by the boss’ son to Tulsa, which is “more the middle of nowhere” than Kansas City.