The story behind ‘The Sopranos’: HBO just embraced this groundbreaking change
Twenty-five years ago, in 1999, David Chase created one of the most iconic television series in history with The Sopranos. It not only made him rich and famous, but also turned its star, James Gandolfini, into one of the biggest names in the business. For weeks a year over six seasons, millions of fans spent every Sunday night glued to HBO to see what would happen next, which often involved who would die next. In HBO’s new documentary series, Wise Guy, out now, Chase talks about the inception of the series, which he originally intended to be a feature film. No major network was interested in this bizarre plot about a mafia boss having a panic attack and seeing a therapist, but it caught HBO’s attention when Chase made a key change that made the pieces fit together. Originally, no one died in the pilot script for The Sopranos. After Chase added some real murders, HBO got involved.
‘The Sopranos’ Was David Chase’s Way to Write About His Mother In Wise Guy, David Chase discusses how the original idea for The Sopranos came about. In 1988, he was working on a show called Almost Grown. While looking for a writer, he met future Sopranos writer Robin Green at a restaurant. The two hit it off immediately when they started talking about their mothers. Growing up, Chase’s mother was a cold woman who didn’t support his dreams or show him much affection. Robin told Chase that he should write a show about his mother and a television producer. Chase didn’t think much of the producer character, but he was interested in making him a badass gangster. Chase thought about turning the idea into a movie, admitting that he wanted to make it big with his dream role, saying, “I’d love to have De Niro and Anne Bancroft.” Chase came up with the idea of a troubled monster who has to see a therapist because he’s having panic attacks. A big part of his problems involved his uncle and mother, whom he put in a nursing home. The two conspire to kill the gangster’s son, and it’s the therapist who helps him get over this. The movie would end with the gangster strangling his mother to death. Deciding to turn his feature film into a television pilot, David Chase pitched his script to four major television networks. No one was interested in the idea of a gangster seeing a psychiatrist, and Chase refused to change the script, so the pitch died.
After his gangster series was rejected, David Chase continued working in television, despite his dream of becoming a film director. Chase continued to write feature scripts, but none of them got made. That frustrated him, but he did work on some major television series, like Bill Bixby’s The Magician, The Rockford Files, I’ll Fly Away, and Northern Exposure. Chase had a steady career, but he said, “You know what the limits are.” Television has rules about what you can and can’t show, and although writers experimented with them, they always fell short.
