By It kicked off the age of Peak TV, but the creator of The Sopranos, David Chase, says that the series would never have been made today.
"In this landscape? Sure," he told The Guardian. "Tony Soprano is too fat. He's too crude. Who cares about New Jersey? I’ve seen these guys before. It’s not dystopian enough. Everything seems to be dystopian now, and this isn't."
Networks have a tendency to bail out of even their most successful shows, he said.
"They buy something then they hate it. They hate whatever they buy. They’re all excited when they buy it, a week goes by and then they hate it. They hated Seinfeld. All that."
He also recalled being turned down by Fox when he originally pitched The Sopranos to them. "They don't trust their audience at all," he said. "I think they were afraid of it. Because how could you like this guy?"
Chase does have an answer to that rhetorical question. "I could tell you a million reasons, but one of them, I’m pretty sure, is that Jim Gandolfini was a magnet. He was impeccable. His eyes are sad. They're alive. His problems are our problems."
Chase and Gandolfini ended the Sopranos years with a strained relationship, but Chase said that the pair made amends before
"He was tired of me, for sure. And I was kind of tired of him. But then we went on to make a movie together [Not Fade Away in 2012] and things were fine. It was refreshed."
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