Did you ever stop believin' that The Sopranos would return? When the groundbreaking show ended in 2007 with the family sitting down to eat at Holsten's ice cream parlour, many fans were, well, disappointed with the hard cut to black as the door to the restaurant opens. What happened? Was Tony dead?
Well, for years, critics and fans have agonised over the ending, some hoping for the show to return and explain a few things. With the death of actor James Gandolfini in 2013, it seemed clear that the show would never return.
Today, Deadline broke the news that creator David Chase is reviving The Sopranos, but not in the way you might have wanted. The show will return as a prequel film set in the era of the Newark riots of the '60s. The Many Saints of Newark will focus at a volatile time in New Jersey during deadly clashes between the African-Americans and Italians of Newark.
The script for the film was written by Chase and Lawrence Konner, who also worked on The Sopranos. As Deadline reports:
Some of the beloved characters from the series will appear in the film. I couldn’t get any more information about the plot, but the time period indicates there will be room for Tony Soprano’s father, Giovanni “Johnny Boy,” the former captain of the Soprano crew (played in flashbacks by Joseph Siravo), and a younger version of his wife Livia (played indelibly in the show’s first season by Nancy Marchand), and Tony’s uncle Junior, played by Chianese.
Maybe it'll at least have a less abrupt ending.
Matt Miller is a Brooklyn-based culture/lifestyle writer and music critic whose work has appeared in Esquire, Forbes, The Denver Post, and documentaries.
