Terence Winter (The Sopranos, The Wolf of Wall Street, Boardwalk Empire), who used to be the showrunner of Paramount+’s Tulsa King, is now back as a writer for the series, ComicBook.com reports. Last February, Winter stepped down from his role as showrunner to the role of producer because of “creative differences” with Taylor Sheridan (Sicario, Hell or High Water, Sons of Anarchy), who is the show’s creator, but staying on as producer. The Hollywood Reporter, who first announced the news, explained in detail that there will no longer be a showrunner on board for the series. Rather, an executive producer and director, whose name has not been revealed yet, will be at the forefront of the production.
Furthermore, the report states that Winter will not be working as closely with Sheridan as he had to in the past. As a writer, Winter will now be working closely with star Sylvester Stallone (Rocky, F.I.S.T., Nighthawks).
“He loves these characters and loved working with Sly and was glad his post-strike schedule allowed him to return to write but not run the show,” said an unnamed source, via The Hollywood Reporter.
Winter explained, in an exclusive Deadline interview, the differences between his and Sheridan’s ideas. He stated, ‘It was essentially the same idea. In his version our character Dwight was a 75-year-old kind of low-level bag man in the mob. He had never been to prison, he didn’t have a family and he got sent out to Kansas City as a reward for a lifetime of service. When I took it over, I really felt like I wanted to explore the idea of a 75-year-old man in the twilight of his years who’s only got a limited amount of time left, who wants to make something of his life. And I felt it would be more powerful if he had spent the last 25 years in jail and he’s fully expecting to be rewarded. Instead he gets sent by the boss’ son to Tulsa. Of course this is a huge conflict, because he obviously gave up everything for this life, including becoming estranged from his daughter. So I just layered it with things that I felt were gonna lend itself to telling a story over many, many hours. We also changed the venue from Kansas City to Tulsa, which I felt was much more the middle of nowhere for a guy like this. Kansas City actually has a pretty big mob presence to this day, but Oklahoma is just nothing. There’s crime obviously, but not organized crime. And dropping a guy like Dwight into the middle of cowboy country felt more ripe with possibilities.”
The first season of Tulsa King is available for streaming on Paramount+.