David Chase, the creator/writer mastermind behind The Sopranos, is journeying back in time for his next HBO project. He's developing a miniseries about the early days of Hollywood, when the West was still sorta wild.

A Ribbon of Dreams will follow two employees of early film mogul D.W. Griffth, one is a buttoned-up nerdy type, the other his cowboy producing partner. They'll encounter a host of the Old Hollywood legendaries—John Ford, John Wayne, Bette Davis.

Chase, who expertly crafted a television Guernica/Pieta/whatever-other-opus of an America in millennial decline with Sopranos, has a rough and raucous past from which to draw for his new period piece. Many of the early pioneers of Hollywood fled the East Coast as a means to avoid the patent fees any aspiring filmmaker had to pay to that greedy baron of power and light, Thomas Edison. They forged a rogue playground of early-times movie makers that was akin to the real Wild West (except, you know, probs a lot gayer). Chase ought to do well treading a seemingly glamorous, exciting world that has large chunks of grit breaking through the veneer. It'll be like the whole thing is set at Vesuvio's or in Carmela's kitchen, except it'll be filled with cigar-chomping movie types wearing suspenders.

Incidentally, the title comes from an Orson Welles quote, who called film "a ribbon of dreams."

File this under Things We're Excited For.