Family, redefined? With so much chatter of a Game of Thrones prequel series sparking into life over at HBO – five prequel pitches are reportedly in the mix, with the franchise’s founding father George R.R. Martin on board to oversee proceedings – it’s a wonder there hasn’t been more rumblings of some form of continuation to The Sopranos.
It’s almost ten years to the day since HBO closed the book on David Chase’s award-winning family drama, and when the series creator was asked about the possibility of a revival by Entertainment Weekly, Chase was understandably cautious. With so many botched revivals (24: Legacy) and film-to-TV adaptations (Minority Report) littering the small screen’s graveyard, the mere thought of a sequel/prequel/reboot to The Sopranos is enough to leave longtime fans of the show clinging on to the edge of their seats. And that’s before you even consider the near-insurmountable task of recasting the late, great James Gandolfini.
But rest assured, as David Chase tells EW, the only way Sopranos can waltz onto the small screen once more if is HBO craft a prequel story that doesn’t read on the toes of Tony, Carmella, Anthony Jr., Meadow, and the rest of the family.
I wouldn’t want to see that happen, no. Like recasting? … Everybody’s getting older, you can’t match people anymore. I could conceive of maybe a prequel of The Sopranos. I could never see [a return of the show] except as a prequel.
Cue the speculation. Granted, David Chase was rather coy in his answers, so it’s safe to assume that even if The Sopranos does receive a prequel, it’ll be some time yet before HBO invites viewers back into the shady underworld of criminal warlords and drug empires. Game of Thrones, meanwhile, returns with a truncated seventh season on July 16th, before and eighth and final batch of six episodes brings the curtain down on the network’s fantasy flagship in 2018 – assuming it isn’t delayed into the following year, of course.