The Sopranos star Edie Falco may not be making an appearance in the upcoming prequel film The Many Saints of Newark – but she almost did! In a new interview, The Many Saints of Newark director Alan Taylor (The Sopranos, Thor: The Dark World) revealed that he actually brought Falco back to film an opening sequence to the prequel film, but that the scene ended up on the cutting room floor. In his larger breakdown of the challenges in making The Many Saints of Newark Taylor indicates that how to open the movie was one of the bigger ones, and unfortunately, revisiting Falco’s Carmela Soprano wasn’t the answer.
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Speaking to NME, Alan Taylor explained that “There was some confusion as to how best launch the movie. How to start the movie. So we tried a few things, and [Edie Falco] was one of them. If you’ve seen the movie, you’ll see that we begin it in a very different way now, but that wasn’t always the idea… We had Edie come in and she dressed up as Carmela, and we shot something with her and it wound up not being in the final movie.”
While Alan Taylor regrets that Edie Falco’s return to The Sopranos didn’t come to fruition, he says that regardless, “it was a great excuse to see her again.”
More to the point: Alan Taylor’s attempt to bring back some Sopranos star power for The Many Saints of Newark apparently didn’t stop with Edie Falco: “Not to give away too much but, when you make a movie you’re not exactly sure the final shape it’s going to be, and we — believe it or not — shot a few things that included other cast members.”
The Many Saints of Newark examines the life of a young Tony Soprano (played by late actor James Gandolfini’s son, Michael Gandolfini), growing up in Newark, New Jersey, during a turbulent time in the 1960s. Tony’s idol Dickie Moltisanti (Alessandro Nivola) begins luring his nephew into the mob business, just as Newark explodes from tensions between its Italian and Black residents. The film is expected to expand upon key backstory that we got during The Sopranos’ six-season run, like how Tony Soprano and Carmela’s families became intertwined and how Dickie’s (corrupting) influence ultimately led to Tony to become the violent and mentally unstable mobster we met in the original series.
If all goes well, it’s looking like The Many Saints of Newark could be the start of a whole new Sopranos franchise. The film hits theaters and HBO Max on October 1st.
