Coming in time for the 20th anniversary of “The Sopranos,” series creator David Chase will celebrate the milestone with the spin-off prequel film “The Many Saints of Newark” which is due to begin shooting in March.
Only hinted at in the series, the film will deal with the rise of the mob and Dickie Moltisanti (Alessandro Nivola) in New Jersey in the 1960s as Newark became ground zero for racial tensions between communities of African Americans and the Italian Americans.
A very young Tony Soprano was there to witness the famed riots and Chase, speaking this week with Deadline, explained what drew him to do this story and how this is not a simple cashing in on the franchise:
“I was interested in Newark and life in Newark at that time. I used to go down there every Saturday night for dinner with my grandparents. But the thing that interested me most was Tony’s boyhood. I was interested in exploring that. The movie will deal with the tensions between the Blacks and whites at the time, and Tony Soprano will be part of this, but as a kid.
I was against [the movie] for a long time and I’m still very worried about it, but I became interested in Newark, where my parents came from, and where the riots took place. I was living in suburban New Jersey at the time that happened, and my girlfriend was working in downtown Newark. I was just interested in the whole Newark riot thing. I started thinking about those events and organized crime, and I just got interested in mixing those two elements.”
Chase also says the way the mob will be depicted in the film will be quite different, here it will be the heyday of the crime family with the mafia itself very polished in their actions and couture. Alan Taylor helms the film which doesn’t have a release date as yet.
