Hold on to your gabagool because the highly anticipated trailer for The Many Saints of Newark just dropped online. The upcoming film is a prequel to the incredibly popular HBO series The Sopranos and stars Michael Gandolfini as a young Tony Soprano during his formative years in Newark, New Jersey. Co-written by Sopranos creator David Chase and directed by veteran TV director Alan Taylor, the Warner Bros. film is said to be centered around the 1967 Newark riots and will focus on racial tensions between the Italian-American and African-American communities.
Premiering in 1999, The Sopranos told the story of New Jersey mobster Tony Soprano, who, after suffering from a series of panic attacks, is required to talk to a psychiatrist despite his mafia code of silence. The Sopranos quickly became a huge hit and is widely considered to be one of the best tv series of all time, receiving high acclaim for its lead performance from late actor James Gandolfini. The show was deeply personal for its creator David Chase, who used the mafia backdrop to explore his own psychological and familial issues, as well as American culture and Italian-American identity. The show famously ended after seven seasons with an ambiguous cut to black as Tony enjoyed onion rings in a dinner with his family. Despite the ambiguous ending, Chase said he had no desire to continue The Sopranos story, however, he never said anything about a prequel.
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The Many of Saints of Newark, set in 1967 New Jersey, tells the story of a young Tony Soprano (played by the late James Gandolfini's son Michael Gandolfini). The trailer opens with Tony doing what he does best: pummeling a man in the streets. From there we see Tony's infamous mother Livia Soprano (Vera Farmiga) as she talks to his principal, who despite his low grades insists that Tony is actually quite intelligent, something his mother immediately writes off. Tony's volatile relationship with his mother was a major focus for the tv show, so it will be interesting to see how things were when she was still raising him. The rest of the trailer largely focuses on Tony's relationship with his uncle/mentor Dickie Moltisanti (Alessandro Nivola), who looks to be a corrupting force for the up-and-coming mobster. Dickie is the father of Christopher Moltisanti, Tony's nephew from the series, who was portrayed by Michael Imperioli.
It's notable that if The Many Saints of Newark does take place in 1967, it will actually retcon much of what's established in The Sopranos. In the first season of the series, Tony has several flashbacks to his childhood in 1967, when he first became aware of his father's real job in the mafia. However, in these flashbacks, Tony is much younger than he is in the new film. While his age isn't outrightly stated in the trailer, he's clearly not a child since Michael Gandolfini was about 20-21 when they shot the movie. It's possible that Chase just really wanted to have Michael Gandolfini portray the character his father made famous without sacrificing the 1967 backdrop. Chase doesn't really seem like someone who cares too much about continuity, and frankly, with The Sopranos being as ambiguous as it is, it's kind of fitting that Tony's past memories don't line up with the new film.
The Many Saints of Newark trailer is also cut together in a fairly exciting and glorifying way, which in some ways is at odds with the ethos of the show, which constantly went out of its way to demystify the mafia, portraying Tony and his fellow mobsters as frauds, backstabbers, and liars rather than the noble soldiers they thought themselves to be. However, that could just come down to how the trailer is cut together, trailers are designed to grab our attention after all.
Fans will just have to wait and see how Chase and Taylor chose to portray the upbringing of everyone's favorite tv sociopath when The Many Saints of Newark comes out this fall. The Many Saints of Newark also stars Jon Bernthal, Corey Stoll, Joey Diaz, Leslie Odom Jr., and Ray Liotta.
The Many Saints of Newark is set to be released simultaneously in theatres and on HBO Max on October 1st, 2021.
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Source: Warner Bros. Pictures | YouTube