'The Sopranos' Creator Talks About the Changing Creative Culture of HBO
HBO has hit a rough patch in the past couple of years, right in the midst of our TV revolution. Vinyl has seen a pretty average arrival compared to what was expected. Westworld has seen setback after setback. And projects from directors like David Fincher have fallen through the cracks.
David Chase, creator behind The Sopranos, is currently writing a mini-series for the network, A Ribbon of Dreams, though that hasn't stopped him from speaking his honest mind regarding the changing dynamic at HBO.
"I haven’t worked with them for a long time and what I’ve heard is they don’t rely quite as much on the creator or the artist doing what comes naturally to him or her," Chase told Deadline. "I remember when we did 'The Sopranos' I had three arguments with [former HBO President Of Original Programming] Chris Albrecht over six seasons, ten years. Yeah, I had three maybe four arguments with him and that’s nothing. Now from what I understand there’s a lot more back-and-forth."
Chase's current project is a six-hour story spanning from 1915 to the present, in what sounds like a pretty extensive undertaking. "It was reported as kind of a history of Hollywood which it really is not, or at least that’s not what it morphed into," Chase explained about his series. "I decided that we didn’t really need a fictitious history of Hollywood because there’s so many real documentaries that you could never capture the scope in a scripted piece.
"But it’s really about three people who go through their lives in Hollywood and Hollywood isn’t the backdrop, it’s actually the environment and it doesn’t cover everything about Hollywood that ever happened."
Chase's comments will no doubt add fuel to arguments that HBO is starting to drop the ball, though the network can be marked down as being in a time of change and transition. No one stays on top forever. The network will look to shape its slate of future projects, and will no doubt stay in the conversation when it comes to TV.
Source: Indiewire
