Just as Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould have filled in the backstory of Breaking Bad with the spin-off series Better Call Saul, David Chase is set to explore the backstory of his own groundbreaking TV drama, The Sopranos, with a prequel movie called The Many Saints of Newark. The movie will primarily revolve around Dickie Moltisanti, the father of Christopher Moltisanti, but it will also feature a young Tony Soprano played by Michael Gandolfini, the real-life son of James Gandolfini, who made the role iconic in the original series.
The younger Gandolfini has opened up about the pressures of taking on his late father’s most memorable role, as well as one of the most beloved TV characters ever created, during an interview with Vanity Fair. What gave Gandolfini the confidence to play Tony Soprano was Chase’s faith that he could pull it off: “I had this unspoken trust that David wasn’t going to cast me if there was even a shred that this isn’t going to work.” Set in the ‘60s and ‘70s, the movie will revolve around Newark’s 1967 riots and use them as a backdrop to explore tensions between the Italian-American and African-American communities.
Chase has assembled a star-studded cast to appear alongside Gandolfini as younger versions of iconic Sopranos characters, including Jon Bernthal as the father of Tony Soprano, “Johnny Boy” Soprano, Corey Stoll as a young Junior Soprano, Vera Farmiga as a young Livia Soprano, and Billy Magnussen as a young Paulie “Walnuts.” The movie will be directed by Alan Taylor, who helmed several episodes of The Sopranos (as well as episodes of such popular dramas as Mad Men and Game of Thrones) and the movies Thor: The Dark World and Terminator Genisys.
Gandolfini’s casting is reminiscent of O’Shea Jackson, Jr. playing his father Ice Cube in Straight Outta Compton, but he wasn’t offered the part of Tony Soprano outright – he had to audition for Chase like everybody else. When he first heard about the project, he thought, “Absolutely not. What if I’m not good?” But his manager convinced him to try out for it, which led to him watching his father’s acclaimed work in The Sopranos for the first time. He explained, “It was really hard to watch my dad. I recorded four hours of his monologues with Melfi and walked around New York with them constantly, constantly, constantly playing in my ear.”
Originally, Warner Bros. planned to release The Many Saints of Newark on September 25, 2020, but thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, the studio pushed it back by almost a full year to September 2021, when it will hit theaters and HBO Max simultaneously. This is par for the course with Warner Bros.’ mid-COVID release strategy. After the surprising success of Wonder Woman 1984, this is what Warner Bros. is doing with most of its 2021 releases, much to the chagrin of a lot of filmmakers who weren’t informed about this plan until they read about it in the news.
The Many Saints of Newark will be released in theaters and on HBO Max on September 24, 2021.
Source: Vanity Fair
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