Sylvester Stallone Is Coming To TV As A Mafia Boss From A Mario Puzo Book

Fresh off his award-winning performance in Creed and his string of award-non-winning Expendables films, Sylvester Stallone will be the next Hollywood star to make the jump from film to television. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Stallone is finalizing a deal to star as an aging mafia boss in Antoine Fuqua’s TV adaption of Mario Puzo’s Omerta, the last book in Puzo’s mafia trilogy that started with The Godfather. It’s difficult to find a summary of the book that isn’t riddled with statements that will spoil important aspects of the series, so here’s just the first paragraph of Amazon’s description, to set things up a bit.

To Don Raymonde Aprile’s children he was a loyal family member, their father’s adopted “nephew.” To the FBI he was a man who would rather ride his horses than do Mob business. No one knew why Aprile, the last great American Don, had adopted Astorre Viola many years before in Sicily; no one suspected how he had carefully trained him . . . and how, while the Don’s children claimed respectable careers in America, Astorre Viola waited for his time to come.

With the series, which has yet to find a home, Stallone joins an increasingly long list of movie stars doing television, Mel Gibson most recently, and John Travolta and his magical portrayal of Robert Shapiro most notably. No pressure, Sly, but did you watch The People v. O.J. Simpson? The bar is set pretty, pretty high. But if anyone can do it, I mean…