Alan Taylor has closed a deal to direct “The Many Saints Of Newark” for New Line, a feature film script written by David Chase that will serve as a prequel to his iconic TV series, “The Sopranos,” TheWrap has exclusively learned.

Taylor won the 2007 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for “The Sopranos” sixth season episode “Kennedy and Heidi,” and directed episodes of “The Sopranos” in four of the show’s six seasons.

The film takes place in the 1960s, when riots swept through Newark, New Jersey and conflicts between African-American and Italian residents were at their worst. Several characters from the “Sopranos” are expected to appear in the film, though New Line would not disclose further plot details.

Lawrence Konner, who worked on “The Sopranos” with Chase, is listed as co-writer for the project. Chase will also produce the film and be involved in selecting the director. Chase Films’ Nicole Lambert will serve as executive producer. New Line is the production company.

“The Sopranos” is widely regarded as one of the greatest TV series ever made, winning 21 Emmys from 111 nominations during its eight-year run from 1999-2007. It was nominated for Outstanding Drama Series in every year it was eligible, becoming the first cable network show to win the award in 2004 and then winning again for its final season in 2007.

Taylor’s other credits include “Game of Thrones,” “Mad Men,” “Boardwalk Empire,” and most recently “Electric Dreams.” On the feature side he directed “Thor: The Dark World” and “Terminator Genisys.”

David Chase has given Deadline a bit of clarity on the prequel feature film The Many Saints of Newark that he wrote with Sopranos alum Lawrence Konner. Chase confirms that a young Tony Soprano will be part of the tapestry of the period film.

As was the case with the show, Chase is clearly the guiding creative influence. That included setting director Alan Taylor, who helmed nine episodes of the show, and Alessandro Nivola to play Dickie Moltisanti. He was the father of Tony Soprano’s future protégé Christopher and a mob soldier who died in the ’70s at the hands of a crooked cop whom Christopher (Michael Imperioli) would later murder on the day of his retirement from the police force. That character will provide an entry point into a look at the mob’s origins in the turbulence of racial tensions between African Americans and Italian Americans in Newark, New Jersey at that time.

“I was interested in Newark and life in Newark at that time,” Chase told Deadline. “I used to go to 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.”

It harkens back to The Sopranos early episodes, when Soprano had his first sessions with psychiatrist Janice Melfi and lamented how organized crime had changed for the worse, and that he’d missed the good all days. It wasn’t all great, though.

“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,” Chase said.

“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,” he said. “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 acknowledged there was also the opportunity to explore the period that Tony Soprano glorified in the show’s early episodes.

“It is going to depict when it was good,” he said. “The mafia was very polished at that time, how they dressed and what they did,” he said. “Those traditions were followed more loosely in the series. These weren’t guys who wore tracksuits, back then.”

Chase understands that the movie will be running up against the memory of the original series, which I bada binged through the holidays and which holds up remarkably well.

“Yeah, I feel they’re out there with shotguns, just waiting,” he said.

The movie is casting up right now for production this year.

Master Virgo wrote: ↑

January 7th, 2019, 2:27 pm

That would be The Wire, my friend.£

m4st4 wrote: ↑

January 7th, 2019, 2:09 pm

It’s still the best show in the history of television though.