The Sopranos, a show which rocked television, was initially rejected by networks. Strange, a series so much lauded by the critics and viewers did not get the approval initially which it needed to proceed.

Dave Chase, who served at the show as showrunner, recalled the early rejection days of his groundbreaking drama on his appearance at the Museum of the Moving Image.

In a candid manner, he said, “Everybody turned it down.” He remembers the efforts he made to get a green light for the project.

Toning down the violence in the show was one.

“See, the first draft that I did, which was for Fox…nobody got killed because it was a network show,” he shared. “I thought, ‘I can’t have a murder. I can’t have somebody…have Tony [Soprano] kill somebody.’ And then they didn’t do it.”

But no violence and moral consequences led Chase to feel the story was empty. So, he rewrote the script to show what organized crime looks like.

“I rewrote it, and I put in a murder, that Chris kills this Czechoslovakian guy, and that then sold,” the 80-year-old remembered.

Then, Chase approached HBO and pitched the revised version. They approved and granted him complete creative freedom, which, as a result, made The Sopranos one of the top-rated shows ever.