'The Sopranos' creator says he was 'bothered' that people wanted to see Tony die: 'Don't tell me you're not on his side in some way'

• David Chase said he was surprised by the public reaction to the finale of "The Sopranos."
• "I had no idea it would be that much of an uproar," Chase said.

David Chase, the creator of "The Sopranos," has said that he was surprised by the public uproar surrounding the 2007 finale of his acclaimed HBO drama and the audience's desire to see Tony Soprano die.

"I had no idea it would cause that much - I mean, I forget what was going on in Iraq or someplace; London had been bombed! Nobody was talking about that; they were talking about 'The Sopranos,'" the Emmy award winner said on the Hollywood Reporter's "Awards Chatter" podcast.

"It was kind of incredible to me," he added.

However, Chase, who directed the final episode of the show, said that he was disappointed that audiences were eager to see James Gandolfini's mob boss Tony Soprano killed in the show's final moments.

"I had no idea it would be that much of an uproar. And was it annoying? What was annoying was how many people wanted to see Tony killed. That bothered me," Chase said.

"I just thought: "God, you watched this guy for seven years and I know he's a criminal. But don't tell me you don't love him in some way, don't tell me you're not on his side in some way. And now you want to see him killed … You're a criminal after watching this shit for seven years," he added.

The final episode of "The Sopranos" controversially concluded with Gandolfini's Tony Sopranos at a New Jersey diner with his family. The scene is famously soundtracked by Journey's "Don't Stop Believin" and abruptly cuts to black leaving the fate of the show's character's up in the air.

Over the years, Chase has resisted explaining what could have happened to Tony Soprano and his family, but he told THR that in his original ending Tony does, in fact, die.

"I had a scene in which Tony comes back from a meeting in New York in his car," Chase said. "At the beginning of every show, he came from New York into New Jersey, and the last scene could be him coming from New Jersey back into New York for a meeting at which he was going to be killed."

Despite the uproar surrounding the show's ambiguous ending, Chase told THR that he is "delighted" to see the show has continued to resonate with audiences over two decades after its finale.

"I didn't think that 'Sopranos' would live on at all even after doing it and even after it got all these accolades because I thought, 'In a couple of years the references won't work, nobody will know what we're talking about, the phones will be different, TVs will be different,'" he said. "That part of it is true - the technology is different - but apparently what it's about still resonates with people."