New Line Cinema’s Sopranos prequel film The Many Saints of Newark has added two well-known actors to their cast. Variety reports that Jon Bernthal (Sicario, Punisher) and Vera Farmiga (The Departed, The Conjuring, Godzilla: King of The Monsters) have joined the film in undisclosed roles.
Jon Bernthal and Vera Farmiga are set to join the cast of New Line’s “The Many Saints of Newark,” a prequel movie to the critically acclaimed HBO series “The Sopranos.”
Plot details are vague other than the film being set during the Newark riots in the ’60s. The exact roles of Bernthal and Farmiga have yet to be revealed. More players from the “Sopranos” lore are expected to be joining the cast.
Alessandro Nivola was previously set to play Richard “Dickie” Moltisanti, the father of Christopher Moltisanti and cousin of Tony Soprano’s wife Carmella. Dickie was killed while Christopher was still an infant and not unlike Christopher dealt with drug and alcohol abuse.
Here is the synopsis for the movie we were able to dig up.
Set in the era of the Newark riots in the 60s. That was a time when the African-Americans and the Italians of Newark were at each other’s throats, and amongst the gangsters of each group, those conflicts became especially lethal. Nivola will play Dickey Moltisanti, a charismatic but violent made man who falls in love with his father’s much younger bride, a recent immigrant from Italy. Childless himself, Moltisanti meanwhile does his best to mentor a teenage Tony Soprano, the son of a family friend who’s serving a multi-year sentence in prison.
Alan Taylor (Thor: The Dark World, Game of Thrones) will be directing from a script written by creator David Chase and Lawrence Konner.
We’ve also learned that filming will begin on April 3rd and expected to wrap on June 10th. Locations will include various locations in New York and New Jersey. They’ve hired production designer Bob Shaw, who has worked on The Wolf of Wall Street, The Irishman, Boardwalk Empire, and the original Sopranos series.
A release date for The Many Saints of Newark has yet to be officially announced by New Line Cinema.
SOURCE: VARIETY
