We haven’t yet seen the highly anticipated Sopranos prequel The Many Saints of Newark, but it looks like if all goes to plan there is a very high chance that another deep dive into the younger years of Tony Soprano will be following very soon afterwards. As we have seen with Dave Bautista and Jason Momoa’s buddy cop movie going from speculative Twitter banter to in development project, things can move fast in the movie industry if the right combination of events come together at just the right time. The Sopranos creator David Chase only mentioned in a Deadline interview earlier today that he would definitely consider doing more movies about the formative years of the mobster, but only if series writer Terence Winter was on board. A few hours later, Deadline had contacted Winter for a comment, and that comment was “The idea of doing another one, and doing it with David, I’d be in in a heartbeat. Absolutely.”
While this is something for fans to get a little excited about, we do need to curb our enthusiasm a little bit, as so far there is no way of knowing how wellThe Many Saints of Newark lands and if the results are profitable enough for Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema to want to take a punt on more of the same. However, from what we have seen so far, there have been only a rare number of cases when a hit is as guaranteed as this movie is of doing what it needs to in order to get a sequel green lit.
The Sopranos original cast take a step away from the franchise to make way for a younger cast, which includes Michael Gandolfini taking over the role that his father made famouse, Tony Soprano. The rest of the cast are just as solid to bring to lives the well known characters much earlier in life than in the series. Vera Farmiga plays Tony’s mother, Livia, and Jon Bernthal plays his father, Johnny Boy Soprano. Corey Stoll plays Uncle Junior, and John Magaro plays Silvio Dante, Billy Magnussen is young Paulie Walnuts, Samson Moeakiola plays Big Pussy, Alexandra Intrator plays his sister Janice, and Robert Vincent Montano plays future chef Artie Bucco.
“This is very flattering,” said Winter when told how much David Chase wants to have him back on board. “I absolutely loved the movie, and I’ve seen it a couple of times. I was really on the fence about whether David should even do it. You know, let’s leave it alone. But the more he told me about his ideas, obviously it couldn’t be in better hands than David and Alan Taylor. I knew it would be good, I just didn’t know how much I was going to love it. To me, it felt like the show tonally, like it was the show, but not the show. It just felt light, tonally, like what we did. The cast was great and Alessandro Nivola was just incredible. Seeing Michael Gandolfini, there were so many moments where, he was his dad. Ray Liotta was great.”
Just because it works as a prequel to the series though, that doesn’t mean the movie is only for fans of The Sopranos. Terence Winterwent on to say how he believes that the movie definitely works whether you know the characters or not, but knowing about the series just provides an extra level if you are willing to pay attention.
“There are so many Easter eggs, that if you know what they are, you get rewarded for paying attention,” he said. And if you didn’t catch then, that’s okay, it works as a freestanding movie. David and I have kicked around just how many stories there are that precede the TV series, and the idea of doing a sequel, if it comes to that, would be really great fun. And also the chance to work again with David, a dear friend and mentor. Just from that standpoint, it would be fantastic.” This news originated at Deadline.