One could make the argument that The Sopranos is the best television show of all time. Regardless of your opinion of the dream sequences, or the way the show has aged, or the controversial series finale, it is an indisputable fact that The Sopranos gave birth to the “prestige drama” and ushered in a Golden Age of Television.
Writers from The Sopranos such as Terence Winter and Matthew Weiner have gone on to create critically acclaimed programs -- you may have heard of Boardwalk Empire and Mad Men, for instance. Former Sopranos actors and actresses have blossomed. Edie Falco followed up her Emmy win for her role as Carmela Soprano with a second Emmy for her work on Nurse Jackie, for example.
But David Chase, the creator, show-runner, and head writer of The Sopranos has remained conspicuously low-key since “Don’t Stop Believin” and the abrupt fade-to-black. So, we at TV Geek Army have been wondering: where is David Chase and what is he up to these days?
In 2009 – two years after The Sopranos went off the air – reports began to surface that Chase was going to reunite with HBO in the creation of a mini-series called A Ribbon of Dreams. The mini-series was to be about “the early days of Hollywood,” a subject that has always interested Chase. According to a report by Variety in March of 2009, “A Ribbon of Dreams will revolve around a cowboy and a mechanical engineer who form an unlikely producing partnership in 1913, making them pioneers in motion pictures.”
The story went on to say, “The mini will follow the characters as they first work for D.W. Griffith and then eventually with marquee names such as John Ford, John Wayne, Raoul Walsh, Bette Davis and Billy Wilder. It will track the growth of Hollywood from the age of silent Westerns to the golden age of talkies and onward. As the longform moves on to the latter part of the 20th century, the action will shift to the main characters' offspring."
As far as I can tell, A Ribbon of Dreams never aired on HBO. The Internet has thus far yielded very few clues regarding the progress Chase had made in terms of completing the project.
The only other project Chase seems to be working on is his first feature film, tentatively titled Twylight Zones. Twylight Zones, which is in post-production and scheduled to be released sometime in 2012, reunites Chase with the leading man from The Sopranos, James Gandolfini. According to reports, “The film takes place in 1960's New Jersey and follows a rock 'n' roll band named The Twylight Zones and the families surrounding the band members. Gandolfini is playing the disapproving father of one of the main characters and band members (played by John Magaro)." Other than Gandolfini, the film will feature Lisa Lampanelli, Brad Garett, Christopher McDonald, and Molly Price.
On a semi-related note: Robert Iler, who played Tony Soprano’s son A.J. Soprano, has virtually disappeared since The Sopranos went off the air. According to IMDB, he has appeared on screen only once since 2007, in a 2009 episode of Law & Order. The poker website Pokerlistings.com caught up with Iler at the 2011 World Series of Poker. You can check out the interview on YouTube here.
Interesting stuff Lucas, thank you. Can't wait to check out Chase's next project, and I automatically try to watch anything Gandolfini was in (Cinema Verite was very solid, btw).
Iler is great, particularly in the final long season. Very surprising that he's not working more.
Eric,
I'm surprised to hear you say that Iler is great. While he certainly improved in the later part of the show, I always felt he was the weakest link on the cast.
I disagree -- certainly he improved over time but I never saw him as a weak link. The chemistry with the parents and kids in the sopranos house was always great in my view. And I always dug when he would say something out of line in the early seasons, followed by an inevitable HO!
I'm totally with you on the HO! part, but the annoying, bratty stuff that AJ would say to provoke the HO! always rubbed me the wrong way.
...Maybe I'm was just jealous of his kick-ass drum set.
Yeah, that set-up was pretty sweet!
Was watching the string of episodes around Tony getting shot recently, and have to add that Iler's emotional shifts from apathy to rage to grief made him stand out in an obviously galaxy class cast
Me and my buddies used to get together to watch on Sunday nights. And as awful as this sounds, I remember us booing when Tony dove into the pool and saved AJ from his suicide attempt. Iler might have been doing great work, but we couldn't get past how much we hated the AJ character.
That is both hilarious and a little disturbing...
But it also sort of proves my point a little: I think you don't like the character of AJ, which may tint your opinion about Iler's work a little bit? I think he does a remarkable job of playing a lazy, disconnected, shiftless kid who happens to be the son of a mob boss.
And I'm realizing that as I've always seen a lot of my step-father in Tony (some of the grunts and mannerisms are scary-close), AJ reminds me a little bit of myself back in the day.
Sounds like if you hated the character, the writer and actor were doing their job.
Now that I think about it, you guys are probably 100%. Iler is one of those actors who I will always associate with the AJ character. If he were to show up in the leading role of another show, I wouldn't be like, "Hey, there's Robert Iler!" I would be like, "Hey, there's AJ Soprano!" In other words, to me Iler IS AJ. And since I can't (or won't) seperate the character from the actor, my extreme dislike of Iler is simply a transference of my feelings about AJ.
**100% correct... Sorry about that.