Shocking Case of Art Imitates Life With HBO’s Final Season of the Sopranos

Atlanta, GA [April 18, 2007] In HBO’s sixth and final season of its hit “The Sopranos”, Christopher Soprano (Michael Imperioli) fulfills his life-long dream of producing a movie. In the episode, “STAGE 5”, which aired Sunday, April 15th at 9 p.m., Christopher premieres his mafia horror film “Cleaver” about a mob boss who returns from the dead with a meat cleaver for a hand.

In a shocking case of art imitating life, the soon to be released film “Lynch Mob” mixes the horror and mafia genres and in an even more bizarre twist of events it stars cast members from “The Sopranos”. “From what I’ve seen, Christopher Soprano’s movie, ‘Cleaver’, is just like ours”, says Byron Erwin, the director of “Lynch Mob”.

“It’s Shocking to me!” says John J. Cornetta, a co-producer and actor. “Because when life imitates art it's fun, but when art imitates life and then art again and you throw in the Sopranos', man eating zombies and the mafia WOW Shock.”

When producers Scott Stamper, John J. Cornetta, and Frank Koretsky put the project together two years ago, they had no idea that how closely it would parallel the hit mob series. “Our film was a horror film with mob elements, so we desperately wanted a cast member from the show.” says Scott Stamper, the writer and co-producer. “We were very fortunate that John Cornetta has known Paul Borghese, one of the series regulars since his childhood and is golf buddies with many other cast members.”

Paul Borghese came onboard the film as an executive producer and an actor. He is also a series regular on “Law and Order” and “Third Watch”. He most recently co-starred opposite of Vin Diesel in the mob genre film “Find Me Guilty”.

Tony Darrow (Larry Boy Barese on “The Sopranos”) was cast as the mob boss in “Lynch Mob”
who sends his minions down to the small town of Lynchburg, Georgia in pursuit of a snitch. His thugs encounter more than expected when they meet the locals – flesh eating rednecks - immortals since a Civil War era curse condemned them all to cannibalism.

Darrow is well known for roles in hit mob films such as “GoodFellas” and “Analyze This”. A small cult following has been building for Darrow among horror film fans since The New York Post released a story about an accident he suffered while filming a stunt on the set of "Lynch Mob" which the film crew decided to keep in – using his real blood in the film. The story made headlines from New York to India’s The Bollywood Reporter.

Horror and mob fans can see the premiere of “Cleaver” on “The Sopranos”, this Sunday, April 15th, but will have to wait until Fall 2007 for the debut of the eerily similar “Lynch Mob”.

Eager fans of both projects can check out HBO OnDemand’s 7 minute mockumentary entitled “The Sopranos: Making Cleaver” or the trailer for “Lynch Mob” by visiting www.lynchmobmovie.com.
“Lynch Mob” is a feature production of First Cinema (www.firstcinema.com) and “The Sopranos” is an HBO Original Series. Any similarities between the two are incidental, but a little disturbing.