Amazon, which last year paid $8.35 billion to purchase the studio behind the wildly successful “Rocky” film franchise, just tied up the legendary star and creator of that cinematic boxing universe, Sylvester Stallone, to a first-look deal.

The arrangement is actually between Amazon Studios and Stallone's Balboa Productions, the latter having recently produced superhero-themed action film Samaritan, which starred Stallone, for Amazon Prime Video. 

Stallone is 76. And as evidenced by the latest “RCU” (Rocky Cinematic Universe) title, Creed III, the enduring franchise he created himself way back in 1976 has moved on without him. (Creed III is the first “Rocky” movie not to feature Stallone.)

But Stallone keeps on punching. 

Last year, for example, Balboa Productions teamed with white-hot producer Taylor Sheridan for Paramount Plus original series Tulsa King, featuring Stallone as an aging New York mobster who relocates to Oklahoma after a lengthy prison stay. 

Not only does Balboa have a green light for a second season of Tulsa King, it’s working on a fourth Expendables movie for Lionsgate, as well as an adaptation of true-life survival book Lost on a Mountain in Maine. 

The latter is for Amazon/MGM.

“Sylvester Stallone is an undeniable Hollywood legend who has created some of the most timeless and iconic characters of our generation. As an actor, writer, director, and producer, he has defined his own epic brand of storytelling and inspired people all over the world,” Jennifer Salke, head of Amazon and MGM Studios, said. “We are excited to continue our relationship with Sylvester and Balboa Productions to bring even more of his exciting creative vision to our global audiences.”

Paramount Global's free, ad-supported streaming service Pluto TV will launch a new 24-hour channel featuring the Rocky film catalog beginning March 1. 

The Pluto TV Rocky channel will feature all the films starring Sylvester Stallone, including the original 1976 Academy Award-winning film Rocky, Rocky II (1979), Rocky III (1982) Rocky IV (1985), Rocky V (1990), and Rocky Balboa (2006), according to the service. 

Also: Taylor Sheridan 'Universe' Expands Yet Again With Paramount's Season 2 Order of 'Tulsa King'

Pluto TV in March will also launch a dedicated channel to the classic anime series Sailor Moon, along with new, on-demand content from such series as Mystery Science Theater 3000, RuPaul’s Drag Race, The Challenge, The Hills, Key & Peele, Bar Rescue, Nathan for You and Judge Judy. 

The service will also feature WOW- Women of Wrestling content, including new season one reboot episodes and two documentary series, according to the service. ■  

Paramount Plus will follow the lives of actor Sylvester Stallone and his family in a new reality series launching this spring. 

The six-part The Family Stallone series will feature the Rocky and First Blood film star along with his wife Jennifer Flavin Stallone and daughters Sophia, Sistine and Scarlet. According to streaming service, “Stallone is ready to give cameras access into what he would consider the greatest role of his lifetime, dad. In this new series starring his three daughters, wife and himself, the Stallone’s offer a seat at the table of one of Hollywood’s most famous families.”

Stallone currently stars in Paramount Plus’ Taylor Sheridan-created drama series Tulsa King as a mafia capo recently released from prison who tries to put his life back together in Tulsa. Stallone's daughter Scarlet also appears in the series, which was recently renewed for a second season.

The Family Stallone is is executive produced by Benjamin Hurvitz, Jessica Zalkind, Nadim Amiry, Julie Pizzi, Farnaz Farjam, and Jonathan Singer. ■

Tulsa King, with Sylvester Stallone playing a mafia boss who gets out of prison and ends up in Oklahoma, debuted on Paramount Plus November 13. The show comes from Taylor Sheridan, the brains behind Yellowstone. 

Stallone plays Dwight “The General” Manfredi, who spends 25 years in prison and is exiled by his boss to Tulsa. “Realizing that his mob family may not have his best interests in mind, Dwight slowly builds a crew from a group of unlikely characters, to help him establish a new criminal empire in a place that to him might as well be another planet,” according to Paramount Plus. 

Andrea Savage, Max Casella, Martin Starr and Domenick Lombardozzi are also in the cast. 

At a TCA event in September, Stallone said he got to know Sheridan through their love of horses many, many years ago, when Stallone was working on a Rambo script. 

More recently, Sheridan reached out about Tulsa King. “And one day, he just had this idea, called me up, pitched it to me in like three seconds,” said Stallone. “I went, ‘I'm in.’ It was very fast.”

Sheridan’s work also includes Mayor of Kingstown, 1993 and 1923. 

Winter’s 'Tulsa King' Tale

Terence Winter is the showrunner.  His credits include The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire. 

Winter described Stallone’s General thusly at a TCA session in September: “Dwight was an incredibly loyal soldier, kept his mouth shut the whole time, sacrificed everything he had, including his relationship with his young daughter from whom he's been estranged for 18 years. So, accordingly, when he gets out, he is really expecting some adequate form of compensation. Instead, he’s informed by his boss’s son, who is now in charge, that he’s being sent to Tulsa, which for him might as well be another planet.”

Stallone of course made his name in movies, from Rocky to Rambo and countless other pictures, typically showcasing him beating down a lesser foe. He learned some lessons working in television for Tulsa King. “It's harder, faster, and longer. That's what it is,” he said. “You really have to be quick. You have to be mercurial. You have to work out of sync a lot of times with sequences that don't follow the natural order of things. But most importantly, you have to keep your energy up, and it's extremely quick. Put it this way. In the amount of time that we did 10 episodes is the equivalent of doing five Rockys in a row, five two-hour films in a row with no break in between. So I had great respect for the crew in their diligence and endurance.”

Stallone, 76, said he’s been trying to work in gangster projects for most of his life, dating back to not making the cut as an extra in The Godfather. “I’d been trying to get in gangster films, and it just never happened,” he said. “So finally, everything comes to those who wait.”

'Tulsa King''s Gangster with Nuance 

Stallone liked that the Tulsa King character is a gangster with some nuance. “I wanted to play a different interpretation of a gangster, because most of the times, gangsters are ‘thems’ and ‘those,’ ” he said. “This is a fella who’s very educated, reads Marcus Aurelius, reads Plato. He’s into Machiavelli. He's also into the classics. He's a different animal than you would normally see in a, quote, ‘gangster’ film.” 

Paramount Network will air the first two episodes Sunday, November 20, leading out of Yellowstone. 

Tulsa King is executive produced by Sheridan, Winter, Stallone, David C. Glasser, Ron Burkle, Bob Yari, David Hutkin, Allen Coulter and Braden Aftergood.

Stallone said growing up in Philadelphia meant being around gangsters now and then. “I grew up around a lot of these mugs, and they're very interesting,” he said. “In Philadelphia, you're always bumping shoulders with them, whether you want to or not, especially in South Philly. So I've got the tempo, I've got the idea, I've got the attitude, so I understand the street life very, very well.”

Tulsa King reviews have been mixed. USA Today said: “The crime drama, about an old gangster forced to move from New York to Oklahoma by his bosses, is a mess, with moments so poorly written they’re cringeworthy. It's part half-hearted Western, part fish-out-of-water comedy and part mob-movie knockoff, with bad wigs and worse accents. It's all a bit embarrassing, to be honest.”

RogerEbert.com liked it more. “There’s a lot to like about Taylor Sheridan’s Tulsa King — clearly his next step in his plot to dominate the easy-chair demographic after his smash-hit Western drama Yellowstone. Most of it lies in its light, effervescent tone, with the wiseguy-in-a-strange-land appeal of something like Get Shorty (book, film and TV show).”

Winter concluded about Stallone’s character, “While he’s in Tulsa, not only is he trying to rectify his past mistakes, he’s also trying to rebuild his life, his relationship with his daughter and a new crew from a very diverse and unlikely set of candidates.” ■

Cable TV’s most-watched drama series returns to the small screen, Netflix returns one of its popular Emmy-Award winning drama series, and Sylvester Stallone debuts in his first scripted series during the Election Day and Veteran's Day holiday week.

Paramount's Yellowstone launches its fifth season on November 13 as it continues to follow the exploits of the Dutton family, who control the largest contiguous cattle ranch in the United States and are in constant conflict with an expanding town, an Indian reservation, and business rivalries, said the network. The season four finale of Yellowstone, which stars Kevin Costner, drew more than 10 million viewers -- the most-watched cable show since the season three premiere of The Walking Dead in 2017, according to Nielsen.

Netflix drops the fifth season premiere of its Emmy-winning series The Crown on November 9. The series, set in the early to mid-1990s, will continue to explore the actions of The Queen, as well as the breakdown of the marriage between Prince Charles and Princess Diana, according to Netflix.

On November 13, Paramount Plus will debut Tulsa King, starring Stallone who plays a mobster who relocates to Oklahoma after being released from prison.

Below are video trailers and premiere dates for multiple shows debuting the week of November 7 to November 13 on cable networks and streaming services (for some videos, viewer discretion is advised):

November 8 – Say Hey, Willie Mays! (sports documentary) – HBO

November 9 – Zootopia+ (animation) – Disney Plus

November 30 – The Calling (drama) – Peacock

November 10 – Warrior Nun (drama) – Netflix

November 11 - Circuit Breakers (sci-fi) – Apple TV Plus

November 11 – The English (drama) – Prime Video

November 11 – Is That Black Enough for You?!? (documentary) – Netflix

November 11 – Mammals (dramedy) – Prime Video

November 11 – Mythic Quest (returning series) – Apple TV Plus

November 13 – Rogue Heroes (drama) – Epix

Sylvester Stallone plays a reluctant superhero forced out of hiding to fight crime in a new trailer for Prime Video's original movie Samaritan, debuting August 26 on the streaming service.

The film stars Stallone as super-powered vigilante Samaritan, who was thought to have been killed 20 years ago in a fiery battle with his rival but instead has been hiding in fictional Granite City in plain sight. A chance encounter with a young neighbor, along with rising crime in the city, forces Samaritan out of the shadows, according to Prime Video.

Along with Stallone, Samaritan also stars  Javon “Wanna” Walton, Pilou Asbæk, Dascha Polanco and Moises Arias.

Stallone is also set to star in Paramount Plus's mafia-themed original series Tulsa King, debuting this November. 

History has stepped into the production ring with famed Rocky star/producer Sylvester Stallone to develop a new scripted series, the network announced during Wednesday’s A+E Networks upfront presentation.

Stallone will executive produce The Tenderloin, which is based on the true story of a turn of the century New York cop Charles Becker, the leader of a Strong-Arm Squad tasked with going to war with the Italian, Irish and Jewish gangs in a violent New York City neighborhood called “The Tenderloin,” according to History.

Stallone took the stage at the A+E Networks upfront Wednesday night at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York, speaking of his decades-long interest in Becker and the colorful figures around him.

RELATED: A+E Brings Out the Stars at Upfront

“Long before Miranda Rights or the fictional series The Shield, there was the very real Charles Becker, a police officer living by his own moral code,” said Eli Lehrer, Executive Vice President and Head of Programming for History in a statement. “This is a passion project for Sylvester, who has discovered new facts on Becker’s case that shed new light on this infamous anti-hero.”

The network has also announced it is partnering with Star Trek star William Shatner on a new series The UnXplained. The eight-episode series, which Shatner will host and executive produce, will explore the facts behind the world’s most fascinating, strange an inexplicable mysteries.

In addition, the network has greenlit a second season of its unscripted series In Search Of, hosted and executive produced by actor Zachary Quinto.

RELATED: A&E Slates Garth Brooks 'Biography' Specials

Other History announcements include the production of docudramas Washington and The Food That Built America, as well as the return of live event special Evel Live this July. History also announced several off-screen initiatives, including HISTORYTalks, a travelling speaker series; HISTORYSpeaks, featuring podcast companions to its series and specials; and HISTORYCon, a three-day convention that celebrates the country’s cultural, societal and political milestones. Former President George Bush led off the guest speakers at Wednesday night’s upfront, speaking of his love for “the History Channel” and the importance of learning lessons from history.

Netflix will flex its original programming muscles in the reality competition genre, teaming with Sylvester Stallone to develop Ultimate Beastmaster.

The series, produced by Stallone (Creed) and David Broome (The Biggest Loser), will pit athletes from around the world in a global competition event.

Ultimate Beastmaster will feature six customized local versions featuring local languages, competitors and hosts from each competing, including U.S., Brazil, South Korea, Mexico, Germany and Japan, according to Netflix.

All ten episodes of the series will be made available at the same moment globally on Netflix, according to the OTT service.

“As a global internet TV network, Netflix can uniquely create a compelling event that pits great competitors from six countries against one another, with commentators that audiences from these countries love and then unleash all of the episodes, at once, in multiple languages for our members to enjoy no matter where they are,” said Erik Barmack, Vice President, International Originals said in a statement. “With Sylvester Stallone and Dave Broome at the helm, it’s going to be outrageously fun.”