The Many Saints of Newark
The Many Saints of Newark (marketed with the subtitle A Sopranos Story) is a 2021 American crime drama film directed by Alan Taylor and written by David Chase and Lawrence Konner. A prequel to Chase's HBO crime drama series The Sopranos, it takes place during the 1960s and 1970s in Newark, New Jersey. The film follows a violent gang war from the perspectives of mobster Dickie Moltisanti and his teenage nephew, Tony Soprano, in the midst of the city's 1967 riots. It stars Alessandro Nivola as Dickie and Michael Gandolfini as Tony, the character originated by his father in the series, with Leslie Odom Jr., Jon Bernthal, Corey Stoll, Billy Magnussen, Michela De Rossi, John Magaro, Ray Liotta, and Vera Farmiga in supporting roles. It was Liotta's final release performance before his death in 2022.
The Many Saints of Newark
Characters
by David Chase
- David Chase
- Lawrence Konner
- Nicole Lambert
- New Line Cinema
- Home Box Office
- Chase Films
- September 22, 2021 (Tribeca)
- October 1, 2021 (United States)
120 minutes[1]
United States
English
$50 million[2]
$13.1 million[3]
Warner Bros. Pictures and New Line Cinema obtained the rights to produce The Many Saints of Newark alongside HBO Films. The film had its world premiere at the Tribeca Fall Preview on September 22, 2021, and was theatrically released in the United States on October 1, along with a month-long simultaneous release on the HBO Max streaming service. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, with many praising the performances of Gandolfini and Nivola, though some criticized the script. However, the film was a box-office bomb, grossing $13 million against a budget of $50 million, while attaining streaming success on HBO Max and contributing to a spike in viewership for The Sopranos.
Plot
In 1967, a young Tony Soprano travels with his mentor, Dickie Moltisanti, to welcome home Dickie's father, "Hollywood Dick" Moltisanti, and his new Italian bride, Giuseppina. Moltisanti is a soldier in the DiMeo crime family, which also consists of Johnny Soprano and his brother Junior, Silvio Dante, Paulie Walnuts, Pussy Bonpensiero, and "Buddha", Pussy's father. After a black taxi driver is assaulted and robbed by white police officers, riots break out in Newark. Dickie's black associate, Harold McBrayer, kills a looter and is forced to flee to North Carolina to escape criminal charges. Before leaving, he gets $500, equivalent to $4,600 in 2023, from Dickie as a gift.
At a carnival, Tony sees Johnny and Junior arrested for engaging in violence during the riots. Johnny is sentenced to four years in prison for assault with a deadly weapon. During an argument, Hollywood Dick kicks Giuseppina down a flight of stairs. When Dickie finds out, he confronts him. An argument leads to a physical altercation where Dickie kills his father in a fit of rage. He covers up the murder by dumping the body in a warehouse and burning down the building.
Guilt-ridden, Dickie visits his father's twin brother, Sally, who is serving a life sentence in prison for killing another made man in his own family. He begins seeing Giuseppina as his comare. In elementary school, Tony is suspended from school for starting a gambling operation, and Dickie makes Tony pinkie promise him that he will follow the rules.
In early 1972, Johnny is released from prison and Harold returns to Newark determined to form a black criminal family. Giuseppina has an affair with Harold after fighting with Dickie. Harold kills one of Dickie's men and steals their extortion money. Dickie and his crew torture and question Harold's lieutenant, Cyril, with an impact wrench before shooting him dead. Harold and his gang then engage in a drive-by shootout with Johnny Boy's crew, during which Buddha is killed. Harold and Dickie engage in a standoff, but both leave when they hear police sirens.
After Tony steals the answers for his geometry exam, the school guidance counselor tells Tony's mother, Livia, that he has a high Stanford–Binet IQ and the Myers–Briggs personality traits of a leader. The counselor relates how Tony told her about a time in which his mother hugged him and read him a book about Sutter's Mill and how it was one of his best memories. Livia tries to show her affection for Tony, but she mentions how her doctor wanted to prescribe her antidepressants. When Tony suggests taking it, she antagonizes him. At Buddha's wake, Tony asks Dickie if he could get Elavil for his mother, but Dickie is hesitant.
After the wake, Junior slips and falls on the church steps, causing Dickie to laugh uproariously in his face, infuriating Junior. Dickie reconnects with Giuseppina and promises to finance a beauty parlor for her to run. During a walk on the beach, she confesses to her affair with Harold. An enraged Dickie drowns her in the ocean. Dickie again visits Sally. Sally says that everyone close to Dickie ends up dead sooner or later, and that he should stay out of Tony's life.
Dickie listens to Sally's advice and begins to avoid Tony, refusing to see him or answer his calls. An upset Tony throws the speakers Dickie gave him out his window. Later that night, Silvio encourages Dickie to reconcile with Tony, and Dickie relents. Before he can arrive home, Dickie is assassinated by an unknown assailant on Junior's orders.
At Dickie's wake, it is revealed that Dickie acquired the Elavil for Tony and had it in his pocket when he was killed. Tony looks sadly at Dickie's corpse and imagines doing another pinkie promise with him, like the two had done years before. Sometime later, Harold moves into a white neighborhood.
Release
The film was initially scheduled to be released on September 25, 2020.[35] Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on theaters and the film industry, its release date was rescheduled to March 12, 2021.[36][37] It was delayed again to September 24, 2021, so it could premiere on the film festival circuit and better position itself as an awards contender, before later moving to October 1.[38][39]
The film was simultaneously released in theaters and on HBO Max, for a limited period of 31 days, as part of the 2021 Warner Bros. film release schedule plans.[40] The film had its world premiere at the inaugural Tribeca Fall Preview at the Beacon Theatre on September 22, 2021,[41] the same date as the film's early release in the United Kingdom.[42]
The film was released on Blu-ray, 4K Ultra HD and DVD on December 21, 2021. Special features include deleted scenes and two featurettes–"Making of Newark" and "Sopranos Family Honor".[43] It debuted at the 33rd position for overall disc sales in the United States according to the "NPD VideoScan First Alert" chart, and the 18th position in Blu-ray sales. Blu-ray accounted for 60% of sales, with traditional Blu-ray making up 48% of the sales and Ultra HD Blu-ray making up 12%.[44]
Reception
Box office
The Many Saints of Newark grossed $8.2 million in the United States and Canada, and $4.8 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $13.1 million.[3]
In the United States and Canada, The Many Saints of Newark was released alongside Venom: Let There Be Carnage and The Addams Family 2, and was projected to gross around $10 million from 3,180 theaters in its opening weekend.[45][46] The film made $2.1 million on its first day, and debuted to $5 million, finishing fourth at the box office.[47] Following its less-than-expected opening weekend, Variety wrote that the film "stands to lose millions".[2] The film dropped 69% in its second weekend to $1.9 million, finishing fifth.[48]
Streaming viewership
The Many Saints of Newark was a streaming success.[49] According to Samba TV, it was viewed one million times during its opening weekend.[50] It outperformed similarly budgeted films such as Reminiscence and Cry Macho that were released on HBO Max, with WarnerMedia stating that it was streamed three times more than the second-most viewed film of the weekend. The Sopranos broke HBO Max viewership records around the time of the film's release, attributed to The Many Saints of Newark sparking renewed interest in the series.[49] By the end of its first month, the film had been streamed in more than 2.1 million households in the United States.[51] During its second week of availability on HBO Max, the film was the eighth most-streamed film in the United States, according to TV Time.[52][53]
Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 72% based on 222 reviews, with an average rating of 6.8/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Even as its storytelling chafes at the edges of its cinematic constraints, The Many Saints of Newark proves The Sopranos' allure is still powerful."[54] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 61 out of 100, based on 48 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[55] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C+" on an A+ to F scale, while those at PostTrak gave it a 77% positive score, with 60% saying they would definitely recommend it.[47]
In a review for The Boston Globe, Don Aucoin said that "as a Goodfellas-ish crime drama that vividly evokes time and place, Saints is rendered with enough bare-knuckled verve, unpredictability, and darkly glinting wit to make it work."[56] In a positive review for the Chicago Sun-Times, Richard Roeper called the film "a sharply honed, darkly funny, ultra-violent and wildly entertaining late 1960s period piece" and an "immensely satisfying companion piece to The Sopranos", giving it 3.5 stars out of 4.[57]
Owen Gleiberman of Variety called Many Saints "a sharp, lively, and engrossing movie, one that provides a fascinating running commentary on how the world of The Sopranos came into being" but noted "[the audience] can't help but notice the difference in tone" when compared to the series.[58] David Fear of Rolling Stone said in his review "Chase has delivered something that walks the tightrope between social melodrama and fan service, and that sometimes teeters on the edge of falling."[59]
Manohla Dargis of The New York Times called the film "a busy, unnecessary, disappointingly ordinary origin story" and said that "the best thing about The Many Saints of Newark is that it makes you think about The Sopranos, but that's also the worst thing about it."[60] Reviewing the film for RogerEbert.com, Glenn Kenny gave the film 1.5 out of 4 stars and said:
"The movie's flabbiness, its unfocused flopping from scene to scene, its disinclination to provide any individual scene with any dimension beyond its immediate impact, practically vitiates the entire theme of Dickie's ostensible mentorship of Tony Soprano."[61] Richard Brody of The New Yorker wrote: "The Many Saints of Newark, by contrast, reduces characters of potentially mythic power to a handful of defining traits and pins them to a diorama-like backdrop of historical readymades."[62]
Possible sequel
Chase has expressed interest in producing a sequel to The Many Saints of Newark which follows Tony Soprano in his 20s, provided that he could collaborate with former Sopranos writer Terence Winter.[63] Upon hearing this, Winter replied that he would do it "in a heartbeat. Absolutely."[64]
Chase revealed that he received an offer from WarnerMedia to produce another season of The Sopranos which bridged the gap between the end of the film and the beginning of the original series, but admitted to The Hollywood Reporter that he was not especially interested in making such a series. He noted that he wished to make one more film set in The Sopranos universe because he had an idea of what he might do, adding: "But I don't think they want that."[65]