Everything to Know About the ‘Sopranos’ Movie ‘The Many Saints of Newark’

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Everything to Know About the 'Sopranos' Movie 'The Many Saints of Newark'

The family returns! After more than a decade, the highly anticipated Sopranos movie is finally headed to the big screen. Announced in 2018, The Many Saints of Newark is not a continuation or a reboot of The Sopranos, which ran on HBO from 1999 to 2007. Instead, it's a prequel that will follow a young Tony Soprano as he grows up in Newark, New Jersey, during the 1960s and 1970s. Sopranos creator David Chase, however, has made it clear that film isn't only about Tony, who was played by the late James Gandolfini in the original series. “The studio has made a lot about the fact that this is a Tony Soprano origin story. It wasn’t written that way. There is some of that in it,” he told Rolling Stone in August 2021. “The movie was not set up as a Tony Soprano origin story. It was a story about Dickie Moltisanti and it still is. It’s a gangster movie. It’s about gangsters in the late ‘60s, early ‘70s in New Jersey — both Black and white.” [jwplayer tV7N8JYT-zhNYySv2] Sopranos fans will recall that Dickie Moltisanti (played by Alessandro Nivola in the movie) was the father of Christopher Moltisanti (Michael Imperioli). He never appeared in the series, though, because the character died before the events of the show took place. Dickie's death was one of the reasons Tony took Christopher — who he referred to as his "nephew" — under his wing. Though the movie doesn't include any actors from the show, it does feature younger versions of the characters fans knew and loved, including Silvio Dante, Paulie "Walnuts" Gualtieri and Corrado "Junior" Soprano. John Magaro, who's playing Silvio, was thrilled to participate in the movie, but he admitted that he was slightly worried about taking on a role that was already played so well by Steven Van Zandt in the show. “I was a huge and still am a huge Sopranos fan; I had the poster on my wall in high school, and I watched it every Sunday night," he told NME in June. "I will say that for those of us who had to play characters who were already established, that was a huge weight on our shoulders. We know how much those characters mean to people. I think everyone who plays those characters really does a service, and I hope the fans don’t feel let down by that.” Keep scrolling to find out everything we know about The Many Saints of Newark: [podcast_block]

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Who's In It?

Gandolfini's son, Michael Gandolfini, is taking on the role that won his father an Emmy three years a row. In addition to Nivola and Magaro, the film also features Vera Farmiga as Tony's mother, Livia Soprano (played by the late Nancy Marchand in the show), Corey Stoll as Junior Soprano (Dominic Chianese), Billy Magnussen as Paulie Walnuts (Tony Sirico), Samson Moeakiola as Salvatore "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero (Vincent Pastore) and Alexandra Intrator as Tony's sister Janice Soprano (Aida Turturro).

There will also be several new characters, including Harold McBrayer (Leslie Odom Jr.), Aldo "Hollywood Dick" Moltisanti (Ray Liotta) and Tony's father, Giovanni "Johnny Boy" Soprano (Jon Bernthal).

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When Does It Premiere?

The Many Saints of Newark was originally scheduled to premiere in 2020 but was pushed back because of the coronavirus pandemic. It will now be released in theaters on October 1, 2021, and will be available to stream via HBO Max for the month of October.

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How Does It Connect to the Show?

The film, cowritten by Chase and frequent Sopranos writer Lawrence Konner, will feature characters from the original series, but given that it's a prequel, it will also likely stand alone for viewers who haven't seen all of The Sopranos. “When I first started The Sopranos, what I really wanted to do was to make a really good gangster movie,” Chase told the Los Angeles Times in August 2021. “And that’s what we wanted to do with this more than anything else.”

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A Tribute to James Gandolfini

Fans have already noticed how much Michael looks like his dad, but the actor said deciding to take the role of Tony was "probably the toughest decision" he'd ever made in his life. Throughout the shoot, the cast and crew regularly paid tribute to James. “We all had dinner one night,” director Alan Taylor told Empire in August 2021. “At one point, [Michael] stood up and said, ‘I want to thank everyone for doing this because it was a chance to say hello to my father ... and goodbye again.’ There wasn’t a dry eye in the house.”

Michael has also said that he didn't try to play Tony the exact way his dad did, particularly because this version of Tony is very different from the one depicted in the series. "My dad’s character had all this beautiful sensitivity underneath this aggression,” he told Empire. “This version of him is the reverse. His curiosity and sensitivity comes first. He’s not a gun-wielding gangster. He’s a kid who gets whittled down and pulled in.”

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Will Cast Members From the Original Show Appear?

In September 2021, director Alan Taylor revealed that Edie Falco was supposed to reprise her role as Carmela Soprano in the prequel film.

“We had Edie come in and she dressed up as Carmela and we shot something with her, and it wound up not being in the final movie,” Taylor told NME. “But it was a great excuse to see her again.”

Although Taylor wouldn't explain how Falco would appear in a movie set decades before the TV show, he did hint that there was talk of exploring events from The Sopranos.  

“There was some confusion as to how best launch the movie, how to start the movie,” he noted. “So we tried a few things and that was one of them. … [Y]ou’ll see that we begin it in a very different way now, but that wasn’t always the idea.”

Taylor also confirmed that not always knowing how the movie would be structured inspired them to shoot "a few things that included other cast members."