Goodfellas And The Sopranos Writers Team Up For New Mafia Series

[The Greek]

Goodfellas And The Sopranos Writers Team Up For New Mafia Series

A duo of the mob genre's greatest goodfellas are coming together to create a prestige mafia drama series.

As confirmed by Deadline, Showtime has greenlit the project after The Sopranos producer Terence Winter and Goodfellas screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi made them an offer they could not refuse.

Details are sparse at the time of writing, although we do know the series will be based on Pileggi's extensive chronology of organised crime in America, which touches upon corruption in the US as seen through the eyes of the mafia's first family.

The entertainment publication also confirmed Winter will pen the script for the currently untitled show, as well as produce alongside Pileggi and Imagine Television's Brian Grazer and Samie Kim Falvey.

This is promising news for fans of the mafia subgenre, with both Winter and Pileggi having put their name to some of its biggest titles.

The latter earned an Oscar nomination for co-writing Goodfellas alongside director Martin Scorsese, which was originally based on his non-fiction book Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family.

Pileggi joined forces with Scorsese again to write the script for Casino in 1995, based on his book of the same, and stood in as producer for both American Gangster and The Irishman.

Meanwhile, Winter executive produced HBO's Emmy-winning series The Sopranos. Oh, and he's the creator, writer and executive producer of the highly successful Boardwalk Empire.

The project marks one of many Grazer is currently involved in, having co-founded the production company Imagine Entertainment.

As well as the untitled mafia series, he is executive producing the second series of Hulu's Wu-Tang: An American Saga, Aretha for NatGeo, an Empire spinoff following Taraji P. Henson's Cookie for Fox, HBO Max's in-development anthology Outliers and the upcoming satirical drama series Filthy Rich for Fox, among others.

Safe to say Showtime's got some big names backing their new show - here's hoping it can fill the Sopranos-shaped hole in our lives.

And while you wait, be sure to check out Talking Sopranos, the new podcast hosted by Michael Imperioli, who played prodigal mafia son Christopher Moltisanti, and Steve Schirripa, the actor for Tony Soprano's brother-in-law Bobby Baccalieri.

Talking through the acclaimed show on an episode by episode basis, the latest instalment even features Winter himself as he shares some crazy stories about how he got started in the business, how he came up with the many ideas for the show and his experience writing the script for The Wolf of Wall Street.

That should keep your mobster cravings at bay.

[Rat]

Extremely excited but hopefully this isn't a pre 1970s mob show.

[SonnyBlackstein]

Extremely excited but hopefully this isn't a pre 1970s mob show.

Ditto

[Wiseguy]

Details are sparse at the time of writing, although we do know the series will be based on Pileggi's extensive chronology of organised crime in America, which touches upon corruption in the US as seen through the eyes of the mafia's first family.

Hmmmm.....

[Amershire_Ed]

Details are sparse at the time of writing, although we do know the series will be based on Pileggi's extensive chronology of organised crime in America, which touches upon corruption in the US as seen through the eyes of the mafia's first family.

Hmmmm.....

It’s hard to tell if he means first as in most prominent or first as in the earliest. I’m kinda leaning toward the “most prominent” just because Boardwalk Empire has heavy mafia themes and characters from the early 20th century. And the writers of the Sopranos made clear to the viewers frequently that that family is not the biggest fish in the pond. So maybe this one is done from the POV of a Genovese type family.

[B.]

I'd much rather see a purely fictional story, ala the Sopranos and the Godfather. There are far more misses when they try to go for non-fiction or historical fiction with real mafia figures.

[miggy9]

The question is tho, who is left to really act in these rolls? I feel like theres no actors out there that can play these guys

[Angelo Santino]

I'd much rather see a purely fictional story, ala the Sopranos and the Godfather. There are far more misses when they try to go for non-fiction or historical fiction with real mafia figures.

It'll inevitably lead to fiction, its impossible not to. I had to write a story with certain elements and I tried to adopt early Pittsburgh and man, when you're on the other side and need to incorporate drama, arc, themes, symbolism, tension etc, you'll understand why Godfather of Harlem depicted Vincent Gigante having killed Bonanno's son Lorenzo or how his daughter secretly dates a black guy while the mob is having it out with Forest Whitaker who "knows this life better than some of Ours."

Just got through Boardwalk, I was able to because it's all fiction to me. That last season though, oof, what happened.

Anyways, The First Family? Do we know if Mike Dash is involved?

[Wiseguy]

I'd much rather see a purely fictional story, ala the Sopranos and the Godfather. There are far more misses when they try to go for non-fiction or historical fiction with real mafia figures.

It'll inevitably lead to fiction, its impossible not to. I had to write a story with certain elements and I tried to adopt early Pittsburgh and man, when you're on the other side and need to incorporate drama, arc, themes, symbolism, tension etc, you'll understand why Godfather of Harlem depicted Vincent Gigante having killed Bonanno's son Lorenzo or how his daughter secretly dates a black guy while the mob is having it out with Forest Whitaker who "knows this life better than some of Ours."

Just got through Boardwalk, I was able to because it's all fiction to me. That last season though, oof, what happened.

Anyways, The First Family? Do we know if Mike Dash is involved?

Well, there's dramatization and then there's just plain absurdity. But I suppose the general public isn't going to know the difference.

[aleksandrored]

It would be interesting if it was something more of the current era, like Sopranos at the time, it was interesting to see a series of the mafia (even if it is fiction) nowadays, I wanted to see how they would do even more today that LCN is not so popular.

[Ivan]

I'd much rather see a purely fictional story, ala the Sopranos and the Godfather. There are far more misses when they try to go for non-fiction or historical fiction with real mafia figures.

War of the Godfathers is probably the most egregious example of this I can think of.

Anyway, if by "mafia's first family" they mean "first" in a chronological sense, then this is probably about the family of Don Giuseppe Battista Balsamo (the first godfather).

[JeremyTheJew]

I mean...

Look at BUSINESS OR BLOOD

a excellent story without any need to fabricate...
...yet.... they made it a joke

[Pogo The Clown]

I'd much rather see a purely fictional story, ala the Sopranos and the Godfather. There are far more misses when they try to go for non-fiction or historical fiction with real mafia figures.

War of the Godfathers is probably the most egregious example of this I can think of.

Anyway, if by "mafia's first family" they mean "first" in a chronological sense, then this is probably about the family of Don Giuseppe Battista Balsamo (the first godfather).

Man I must be the only one on the forums who really enjoyed War of the Godfathers.


Pogo

[Grouchy Sinatra]

I was also wondering what they meant by "first family". The Morellos? Anyhow with Terrence Winter involved this has Boardwalk Empire written all over it, which I thought was kind of meh. Way too many storylines in each episode.

[Grouchy Sinatra]

I'd much rather see a purely fictional story, ala the Sopranos and the Godfather. There are far more misses when they try to go for non-fiction or historical fiction with real mafia figures.

Neither The Sopranos or The Godfather were entirely fictional. Both basically did reenactments of real stories just in the universe of their fictional characters. The first season of The Sopranos was definitely based on the DeCavalcante dust up in the 90s after their boss died of cancer. Phil trying to take out Jersey was undoubtedly based on Amuso and Gaspipe. The Godfathers 1 and 2 took just about every major mob related event from the 1930s to the 1950s and reenacted them with its fictional Corleone family.