‘The Sopranos’ Was Written as a Movie About ‘A Mobster in Therapy’
The Sopranos is considered one of the best TV shows ever. Critics and fans praise the HBO show for its stories, characters, and production value. However, did you know The Sopranos was almost a movie?
‘The Sopranos’ is 1 of the most popular shows of all time
The show premiered in 1999 on HBO and ran for six seasons, ending in 2007. The Sopranos followed Tony Soprano, a New Jersey mobster. He is struggling to balance his complicated family life with his work in the criminal underworld. He frequently attends therapy sessions to help him figure out how to juggle his two worlds.
Tony was played by James Gandolfini. The actor won three Emmy awards, five SAG awards, and a Golden Globe for his performance. Edie Falco played his wife Carmela; she won two Golden Globes and three Emmys while on The Sopranos.
Other notable cast members include Lorraine Bracco, who also starred in Goodfellas, The White Lotus‘ Michael Imperioli, Tony Sirico, E Street Band member Steven Van Zandt, and Jamie-Lynn Sigler.
‘The Sopranos’ showrunner David Chase said ‘television was never part of my life goal’
Most fans can’t imagine The Sopranos as anything but a multi-season TV show. But the creator of the project originally pitched The Sopranos as a movie. David Chase, who created The Sopranos and served as showrunner and head writer, told Written By that his “goal was never to create a show.”
“Television — I’ve said this before and I’m going to say it again — television was never part of my life goal,” Chase continued. “I wanted to be a filmmaker. I wanted to make movies,” he said. But “I got hired to do a TV show.”
David Chase originally pitched ‘The Sopranos’ as a movie
Chase worked as a story editor, producer, and writer on shows like The Rockford Files, Northern Exposure, and Almost Grown, which was the first show he created.
“The story of The Sopranos was a feature pitch — and I call it a pitch because I did pitch this as a movie, which was a mobster in therapy having problems with his mother, who’s also involved in some sort of a gang war or mob business problem,” he said of his original version of The Sopranos.
Chase couldn’t get the pitch made as a movie, but he later thought of turning it into a TV show. He said he initially thought about making the main character a TV producer who’s going to therapy because of his relationship with his mother. But he decided that was “wussy.”
“So I had thought, Well, maybe if the guy’s a gangster, he’s at least a tough guy. He’s everything I’m not,” Chase explained. He added that making it a show meant he could focus on the female characters, too.
‘The Sopranos’ eventually got a prequel movie
The Sopranos was so popular that it even spawned a prequel movie. The Many Saints of Newark premiered in 2021 on HBO. The movie follows a teenage Tony as he is initiated into the world of the mob in the 1960s and 70s.
Michael Gandolfini, James Gandolfini’s son, played the younger version of Tony. The cast also included big names like Leslie Odom Jr, Jon Bernthal, Corey Stoll, Ray Liotta, Vera Farmiga, and Billy Magnussen.
