Sylvester Stallone Joins Forces With a ‘Yellowstone’ Star for New True Crime ‘Boardwalk Empire’ Replacement

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Sylvester Stallone looking at two people across from him seriously in the Tulsa King Season 3 finale.

Published Feb 2, 2026, 6:16 PM EST

Ryan O'Rourke is a Senior News Writer at Collider with a specific interest in all things adult animation, video game adaptations, and the work of Mike Flanagan. He is also an experienced baseball writer with over six years of articles between multiple outlets, most notably FanSided's CubbiesCrib. Whether it's taking in a baseball game, a new season of Futurama or Castlevania: Nocturne, or playing the latest From Software title, he is always finding ways to show his fandom. When it comes to gaming and anything that takes inspiration from it, he is deeply opinionated on what's going on. Outside of entertainment, he's a graduate of Eureka College with a Bachelor's in Communication where he honed his craft as a writer. Between The IV Leader at Illinois Valley Community College and The Pegasus at Eureka, he spent the majority of his college career publishing articles on everything from politics to campus happenings and, of course, entertainment for the student body. Those principles he learned covering the 2020 election, Palestine, and so much more are brought here to Collider, where he has gleefully written on everything from the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes to Nathan Lane baby-birding sewer boys.

Sylvester Stallone is officially preparing his next big foray into television. The Rocky and Rambo icon’s first small-screen starring role in Taylor Sheridan’s crime drama, Tulsa King, has been an overwhelming success through three seasons so far, with a fourth on the way at Paramount+ that’ll keep him as one of the faces of the platform. Since then, he’s only continued to expand his presence there, creating Fox’s reality survival series Extracted and taking on his own family reality show in The Family Stallone. For his latest project, though, he’ll now be joining forces with another member of the wider Sheridan-verse for a true crime drama based on a novel that's long been targeted for an adaptation.

According to a new report, Stallone and Yellowstone alum Cole Hauser are partnering with MGM Television to bring to lifeBlood Aces: The Wild Ride of Benny Binion, the Texas Gangster Who Created Vegas Poker by Douglas J. Swanson. Both Stallone and Hauser will be producing through their respective banners, Balboa Productions and American Outlaw Entertainment, with the latter set to take up the lead role of Binion. At this time, it doesn't appear that Stallone will have a role to play on-screen, but he's nonetheless excited about bringing the story of gambling, ambition, and one larger-than-life character to screens in the form of a gritty prestige character drama. In an official statement about the show, he said:

"Douglas J. Swanson’s book captures the incredible life of Benny Binion, a New West icon who was a conduit connecting many worlds, some glamorous, some dangerous, some shady, but all intriguing, while helping to build the foundation for both Las Vegas as we know it and the explosive worldwide popularity of poker. This is a story that will captivate audiences, and it’s a role made for Cole Hauser to play. I am proud and excited to partner with Cole to bring this story to life.”

What Is 'Blood Aces' About?

Blood Aces was published in 2014 and, not entirely unlike what Boardwalk Empire did for Atlantic City, tells the story of the powerful man who helped build Las Vegas and the game of poker into what they are today through bending the law to his will. It follows Binion's rise from small-time Fort Worth hustler to Dallas gambling kingpin and eventually the larger-than-life mastermind in Vegas, responsible for creating the World Series of Poker and molding his surroundings around his "unapologetically bold style." In running a casino and acting as a mob boss, he also turns to unscrupulous means to consolidate power, violently besting his rivals from notorious mobsters to even J. Edgar Hoover himself, and owning the cops. Described as "an American anti-hero," Binion holds a vaunted, if complicated, spot in the lore of Vegas and the world of gambling that Hauser believes is all the more interesting because of his many flaws and cold-blooded nature:

“Benny Binion is one of the great Western American characters and success stories of the 20th century, loaded with ambition, vision, balls, and like all controversial characters, many flaws. His legacy is undeniable. How he built it is an incredible story which we can’t wait to tell. It’s a privilege to play him and an honor to produce this with Sylvester Stallone and MGM to bring this incredible story to life.”

Adapting the true crime novel into a television series is one of several irons Stallone and Balboa Productions have in the fire. Tulsa King Season 4 began production back in November in Atlanta, though the banner is also hard at work on Patrick Hughes' new Navy SEAL-centric action thriller starring Reacher's Alan Ritchson as Medal of Honor recipient Mike Thornton. For Hauser, Blood Aces also adds to his lineup of high-profile projects, including a return as Rip Wheeler in the Yellowstone spin-off The Dutton Ranch and a new sports series from Nic Pizzolatto also starring Matthew McConaughey.