David Chase was approached for a TV remake of The Godfather which he rejected, but it inspired him to make The Sopranos.
The Sopranos may be one of the greatest television shows of all time but David Chase never had plans to make six seasons of a network TV show. The show, starring James Gandolfini, was initially planned as a movie. It was supposed to be a mob comedy centered around a mob boss and his problematic mother, much similar to Tony and Livia Soprano.
However, Chase was told that a mob comedy wasn’t exactly the crowd-puller in the theaters. But he was then approached for creating a TV series based on Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, which became a classic hit as a movie. Chase wasn’t ready to rehash the story for television, but he had another storyline in his mind.
David Chase’s The Sopranos happened after he turned down The Godfather TV show pitch
David Chase didn’t exactly have a cordial relationship with his mother. Chase’s family issues began messing with his marriage and he decided to eventually go to therapy. He then applied his personal experience to a story about a mobster and decided to make it a mob comedy film.
Chase shared with The Guardian that the potential film would’ve centered around Tony, the mobster, and his mother whom he sent to a nursing home. However, when he presented this idea to his agent, they told him that mob comedies weren’t happening anymore.
He decided to put his story aside until he was approached to do a TV version of The Godfather. He turned it down, sharing that “it had been done”. However, the pitch gave him the idea to roll out his own mobster series. It wasn’t anything like Marlon Brando’s film but about a mob boss who goes to therapy, like himself. He shared:
I was thinking, not The Godfather, but I have that thing about the guy going to therapy. Maybe I’ll try that.
After he changed his script of The Sopranos from a movie to a television show, Chase still faced a few issues. For instance, he believed that he had to make his show more female-oriented because network TV dramas were targeting mainly females (via Looper). However, both his female characters and Tony’s visit to the therapist were met with laughter from network executives.
David Chase found a suitable partner for The Sopranos in HBO
While other networks laughed off David Chase’s brilliant pitch for The Sopranos, HBO found it to be intriguing. They picked up the series for a pilot and it was one of their best decisions ever. The therapy scenes between James Gandolfini and Lorraine Bracco’s characters went on to become a massive hit among the audiences.
The series also featured many strong female characters, played by Edie Falco, Drea de Matteo, Nancy Marchand, and others. The success of the series on HBO was surprising to Chase, who never thought that his idea of a mobster in therapy would go on to become a television classic.
However, he had little belief in his series once he filmed the pilot. Falco, who played Tony’s wife, Carmen Soprano, shared that Chase was not sure about the show getting picked for a full season. After filming the pilot, he allegedly told the entire cast and crew, “Thanks everybody, it was fun while it lasted.”
During an interview with Rolling Stone in 2001, James Gandolfini opened up about his role as a family-man Mafia boss in the crime drama. He shared, “I’m a neurotic mess. I’m really basically a 260-pound Woody Allen.” In his tribute to the actor, Chase called Gandolfini a “genius”, even comparing him to Mozart (via The Telegraph).
