Will Sylvester Stallone land an Emmy nomination for ‘Tulsa King’?

Sylvester Stallone starred in an Academy Award Best Picture winner (“Rocky,” 1977) and his films have collectively earned more than $4.5 billion in box office worldwide. He has three Oscar nominations to his credit – two for writing and starring in “Rocky” in 1977 and a supporting nod for “Creed” in 2016 – along with Golden Globe and Critics Choice triumphs for “Creed” in ’16.

Paramount+ plans a healthy Emmy campaign for season one of its nine-episode streaming mob-themed dramedy “Tulsa King,” which stars the 76-year-old Stallone in his first foray onto the small screen. In the show that premiered last November, he portrays Dwight “The General” Manfredi, a Mafia capo who recently got out of prison and is sent to Tulsa, OK to establish criminal operations there. It was created by Taylor Sheridan (“Yellowstone”) and run by Terence Winter, the latter of whom opted to leave the show ahead of production on season two over creative differences with Sheridan.

Reviews of the show were decidedly mixed but there was respect for Stallone’s performance. One critic noted, “Sly’s wisecracking about a world that is unfamiliar in just about every way allows this to tick along nicely.” Another observed, “The combination of (Sheridan, Winter and Stallone) absolutely should not work, but like peanut butter, Nutella and bacon, ‘Tulsa King’ is messy and terrible for you but also delicious.” A third noted, “When the show works, it works precisely because of Stallone’s charming, if characteristically mannered, performance. Stallone’s range is as compact as ever, but he navigates it with the precision of a contortionist trapped in a box.”

Paramount+ has announced that it’s submitting “Tulsa King” for Emmy consideration as a comedy, with Stallone put up as lead comedy actor – meaning he’ll be competing with people like Jason Sudekis (“Ted Lasso”), Bill Hader (“Barry”), Jeremy Allen White (“The Bear”), Donald Glover (“Atlanta”) and Steve Martin and Martin Short (“Only Murders in the Building”) rather than Adam Scott (“Severance”), Brian Cox and Jeremy Strong (“Succession”), Jeff Bridges (“The Old Man”) and Pedro Pascal (“The Last of Us”).

Several more of the show’s players will be submitted for comedy series supporting, including Andrea Savage, Martin Starr, Jay Will, Dana Delany (a two-time Emmy winner for “China Beach”), Annabella Sciorra and one-time “Doogie Howser, M.D.” regular and “Sopranos” semi-regular Max Casella.