The Sopranos creator David Chase has said for years that he has no interest in continuing his groundbreaking HBO series beyond the final episode, but he could “conceive of maybe a prequel.” Or how about a prequel movie?
Deadline reports that New Line Cinema purchased Chase (who will also produce and find a director) and Lawrence Konner’s screenplay for The Many Saints of Newark, “the working title for a feature prequel of The Sopranos that is set in the era of the Newark riots in the ’60s. That was a time when the African-Americans and the Italians of Newark were at each other’s throats, and amongst the gangsters of each group, those conflicts became especially lethal.”
Little is known about the plot, but considering when the film is set, the story will likely follow Tony’s parents, Giovanni Francis “Johnny Boy” Soprano and Livia Soprano (hopefully this time without immediately-dated CGI), and Corrado John Soprano, Jr. More “Uncle Junior” in our lives is never a bad thing.
“David is a masterful storyteller,” said Warner Bros Pictures Group chairman Toby Emmerich, “and we, along with our colleagues at HBO, are thrilled that he has decided to revisit, and enlarge, the Soprano universe in a feature film.”
It will make a great double feature with Cleaver.
(Via Deadline)
