How The Creator Of Oz Convinced David Chase That A Sopranos Movie Could Work

This post contains spoilers for "The Sopranos."

"I didn't want to do a 'Sopranos' movie at all, especially when it ended the way it did, and it ended really well," said "The Sopranos" creator and showrunner David Chase. Chase has always been precious about his crime drama series. From its therapy-couch origins to the casting of James Gandolfini in the lead role of mobster Tony Soprano to the polarizing ending of the series after six successful seasons, the American filmmaker was a staunch custodian of his characters and their stories as they navigate a life of organized crime in New Jersey.

Knowing that the series itself was a long time coming (the pilot had been ordered years before the 1999 premiere date), one might think that the show's creator has so much material that he simply explored the nooks and crannies of uncharted storyline territory for the 2021 prequel movie "The Many Saints of Newark," which sees young Tony Soprano growing up amid a volatile time for the city and would arrive fourteen years after the show's 2007 finale.

"Woke Up This Morning: The Definitive Oral History of The Sopranos" is an impressive collection of insights on the show, largely from the "Talking Sopranos" podcast run by "The Sopranos" stars Michael Imperioli (who plays Christopher Moltisanti) and Steve Schirripa (as Bobby Baccalieri) and assembled by journalist Phil Lerman into 500+ pages of interviews and spectacular behind-the-scenes stories. Inside, Chase talks beyond the show and goes into the then-upcoming prequel, which he reveals wasn't plotted out during the course of the series. Despite persistent interest from then-Warner Bros. exec Toby Emmerich, Chase didn't see the value in a prequel movie until he spoke with Tom Fontana, who knows a thing or two about prestige tv.

Titled "Made In America," the final episode of "The Sopranos" aired on June 10, 2007. The show had been a boon for HBO, earning scores of steady viewers over its six seasons as it followed caporegime Tony Soprano throughout his attempts to navigate business and his family life.

"Made In America" observes Tony (a wanted man for a few reasons) waiting for daughter Meadow to meet him and the family at Holsten's Brookdale Confectionery; with Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" wafting from the jukebox, Meadow enters and the camera moves in close to Tony's face — and that's that. /Film's Danielle Ryan writes that after years of cryptic answers, the show's creator confirmed that he indeed imagined Tony's death in the diner, but wrote the scene open-ended for storytelling reasons.

It may have launched nuclear levels of debate among fans, but it's an ending that Chase is perfectly fine with. For years, the Emmy-winning producer would veto efforts to resurrect the Soprano saga, but it would be "Oz" creator Tom Fontana who changed his mind. Chase tells Imperioli and Schirripa:

"I had an interview with Tom Fontana. We were talking, and he said, 'Do you want to do a movie of this? Because you know what would be good is if we saw Junior and Johnny when they were younger. Do Newark back in the fifties.' I thought, 'Oh, yes. That would be interesting,' because that's where my parents grew up, I was there in Newark in the fifties and sixties."

Chris Evangelista's review of "The Many Saints of Newark" classifies the location as depicted in the film as a "very small, nasty world full of low-lives who think they're hotshots" in a solid expansion of the hit show. Just as "Made In America" ended, "Newark" continues to remind us how inescapable the world of violence can be.