David Chase, who created The Sopranos, shared that he believes TV is going backwards as network and streaming service executives are telling him to “dumb it down” when it comes to new projects.
The Sopranos. Photograph by Courtesy of HBO
Chase spoke with The Times to discuss the upcoming 25th anniversary of the hit HBO show. However, he does not believe it is a time to celebrate rather he posits it’s a time for a funeral.
He opined, “Yes, this is the 25th anniversary, so of course it’s a celebration. But perhaps we shouldn’t look at it like that. Maybe we should look at it like a funeral.”
Chase elaborated, “That was a blip. A 25-year blip. And to be clear, I’m not talking only about The Sopranos, but a lot of other hugely talented people out there who I feel increasingly bad for.”
The Sopranos 25th Anniversary logo
As the interview progressed, Chase shared how he hated the TV model of 25-years and used Elvis Costello’s Radio Radio song as inspiration to change it. The song features the lyrics, “I wanna bite the hand that feeds me/ I wanna bite that hand so badly/ I want to make them wish they’d never seen me.”
Chase shared the lyrics embodied “exactly how I felt.” He added, “And I succeeded too — I made them regret all their decades of stupidity and greed. Back then the networks were in an artistic pit. A s**thole. The process was repulsive. In meetings these people would always ask to take out the one thing that made an episode worth doing. I should have quit.”
The Sopranos (P621) “Made In America” 03-22-2007 Director: David Chase DP: Alik Sakharov Scene 61-63-65-67 (int) Holsten’s Diner “The gang shows up for family dinner” James Gandolfini (Tony Soprano) Edie Falco (Carmela) Robert Iler (Anthony Jr.) Photo Credit: Will Hart / HBO
Speaking specifically to The Sopranos and how it was rejected before eventually being picked up by HBO, he said, “I should have known that a real mafia wiseguy show would not happen on US TV. If you think your grandmother is risk-averse you should meet network people.”
“Well, I could’ve done an idiotic Mob show, a watered-down Godfather, but why would you cut its balls off yourself? On a network I could not do out-there Italian characters, and there was sex, violence and bad language. It was never going to happen,” he shared.
He also lampooned executives for never taking responsibility for failures, “That’s typical Hollywood. They never take responsibility, but load responsibility on to the talent and bury them in guilt for not ‘getting’ it.”
James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano in The Sopranos, HBO
Later in the interview, Chase explained why he sees it as a funeral, “We’re going back to where I was. They’re going to have commercials. And I’ve already been told to dumb it down.”
Speaking about a show he’s developing with Hannah Fidell about a high-end prostitute going into witness protection, Chase shared executives gave him “the unfortunate truth” that the show is apparently too complex.
He questioned, “Who is this all really for? I guess the stockholders?”
James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano in The Sopranos, HBO
Chase then opined, “As the human race goes on we are more into multitasking. Your phone is just one symptom, but who can really focus? Your mother could be dying and you are by her hospital bed taking calls.”
“We seem to be confused and audiences can’t keep their minds on things, so we can’t make anything that makes too much sense, takes our attention and requires an audience to focus. And as for streaming executives? It is getting worse. We’re going back to where we were,” he reiterated.
James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano in The Sopranos, HBO
It’s hard not to agree with Chase about audiences being distracted by their phones, who hasn’t picked up their phone in the middle of a television show?
However, attempting to get people to watch the show over their phones by making the shows dumber seems to be counterintuitive. Wouldn’t you want to draw viewers in with a complex and compelling story so they don’t even think about their phones? Wouldn’t you want them to be so fully immersed, they don’t even know their phone is in their pocket or on the couch arm next to them?
But given what we’ve seen come out of Hollywood in the past couple of years, it’s not surprising that they would engage in counterintuitive behavior, just look at Marvel Studios’ She-Hulk.
(L-R): Charlie Cox as Daredevil/Matt Murdock and Tatiana Maslany as She-Hulk/Jennifer “Jen” Walters in Marvel Studios‘ She-Hulk: Attorney At Law, exclusively on Disney+. Photo by Chuck Zlotnick. © 2022 MARVEL.
What do you make of David Chase’s comments about studio executives wanting to dumb down his shows?
