James Gandolfini made quite a name for himself playing Mafia man Tony Soprano, and it looks like his son Michael is not content with just taking over his father’s iconic role for The Many Saints of Newark as he has now signed on to star in The Offer, another Mafia based project for Paramount+. This time around, Gandolfini will be rounding off a cast including Zack Schor, Miles Teller and Giovanni Ribisi for the series telling the biographical story of the making of that Mafia classic, The Godfather.
The ten part limited series will see Gandolfini portraying businessman Andy Calhoun, who is looking to buy out Paramount Studios, who famously produced The Godfather series of movies. He joins Miles Teller who plays Albert S. Ruddy, the producer who set the wheels of the iconic Marlon Brando movie in motion, Zack Schor, as assistant director Fred Gallo, Matthew Goode as Robert Evans and Giovanni Ribisi as Joe Columbo.
The Offer was originally announced back in September 2020 with a number of the main cast members being announced before the end of the year and the bulk of the remaining announcements made across June and July 2021, the latter group including Burn Gorman as Charles Bludhorn and Justin Chambers in the role of Marlon Brando. Michael Gandolfini comes as one of the last people to be cast in the series, which began filming in July this year before being halted due to positive Covid tests among the production crew. In August the production was hit with another stalling point when plans to shoot at the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles was scrapped as part of an ongoing boycott of the venue, which was hit with a number of complaints of racial discrimination by staff after the hotel fired over 200 workers in March this year during the Pandemic.
Gandolfini has brought a lot of attention to himself by taking on the role of a young Tony Soprano in the Sopranos prequel The Many Saints of Newark and it is showing as he hasn’t had to wait too long to pick up his next part. Having said that, the twenty-two year old is not short of upcoming movies, with the Russo Brothers directed The Gray Man and comedy horror Disappointment Blvd. already in post-production, while Susanna Fogel’s psychological thriller Cat Person is currently filming. While the majority of these and The Offer don’t yet have release dates, it is likely they will all land in 2022 or early 2023 making it a busy couple of years for Gandolfini already.
The Many Saints of Newark proved to be a massive hit over on HBO Max where it not only became one of their biggest original hit movies, but also brought a lot of attention back to The Sopranos series, pushing it up the streaming charts in the wake of the movie’s release. While many studios have dismissed the benefit of releasing new movies straight to streaming with a limited cinematic release, the platform has been more than happy to take the double hit of viewer increases brought about by their decision to go with a day and date release for the Sopranos prequel.
The Offer will premiere exclusively on Paramount+ sometime in 2022, while both The Many Saints of Newark and the entire series of The Sopranos can also be found on HBO Max, who are also in talks to produce a new Sopranos series set after the events of the movie. This news comes to us from Variety.
Source: movieweb.com