David Chase famously (or infamously) doesn't like to tie things up neatly with a bow.
As the creator and mastermind of HBO's beloved mob series "The Sopranos," Chase deliberately let some storylines trail off into ambiguity, and even after 86 hours of richly detailed storytelling, there were plenty of questions that were never fully resolved.
Who really killed Christopher Moltisanti's father, Dickie? What happened to the lamp that the FBI bugged after Meadow took it to college? Did the Russian mobster that Christopher and Paulie Walnuts pursued into the woods in the classic episode "Pine Barrens" live or die? And, most importantly, what ultimate fate awaited the Sopranos clan in the series finale when the screen suddenly — and, to many, maddeningly — cut to black?
We may never get answers to most of those lingering questions. But now with the "Sopranos" prequel film "The Many Saints of Newark," which hit theaters and HBO Max Friday, Chase has returned to the scene of the crime and filled in at least a few key gaps, while creating potential new avenues to explore in the future.
By end of "The Many Saints of Newark," we have a clearer sense of the forces that shaped the young Tony (played by the late James Gandolfini's son Michael) and set him on the path toward a life of crime.
But the film's ending also leaves some threads that could be explored in future chapters in the "Sopranos" saga — assuming Chase has the appetite to go further. "The Many Saints of Newark" concludes with a key death that leads to a symbolic passing of the torch.
And then, during the credits, we see that Harold McBrayer (Leslie Odom Jr.), a former associate turned rival to boss Dickie Moltisanti (Alessandro Nivola), is still working to build the Black criminal empire that is threatening the domination of the Italian mafia.
Between the ending of "The Many Saints of Newark" and the beginning of the "Sopranos" series lies a gap of two decades in which other stories could potentially be explored, from the war between the Black and Italian gangs to Tony's further forays into crime to his burgeoning relationship with future wife Carmela (seen briefly in the film as his high school girlfriend).
But it remains to be seen which of those stories, if any, Chase will want to tell.
Many "Sopranos" fans — and perhaps some HBO executives as well — would undoubtedly love to see the prequel film kick off a new series focused on the young Tony's rise to power. But while working on the film, Chase was adamant that it would be a one-off project, according to his producing partner, Nicole Lambert.
"He was very, very opposed [to future 'Sopranos' installments]," Lambert told the Los Angeles Times in August. "He was like, 'One and done. Never doing this again.'"
But speaking to the L.A. Times in August, Chase said that while he was not interested in doing a prequel series, he has warmed to the idea of extending the "Sopranos" universe a little further.
"I wouldn't do a series but I might do a sequel to this movie," Chase said. "I'd really like to work with ['Sopranos' executive producer and writer] Terence Winter again, the two of us together. If that was to work out, that would be important. If it wasn't, I'm not sure I would want to do all that work myself." (While nothing has been officially set, Winter has said he would welcome that prospect.)
With "The Sopranos" still a popular choice for the greatest TV series of all time, Lambert believes there is ample appetite among fans to justify plowing ahead.
"A lot of people who've seen the film have said, 'Please, I want more,'" Lambert said. "I'm excited that people want to revisit it. Hopefully it means we've done our job."
Indeed, so rich and sprawling is the universe of "The Sopranos," if die-hard fans had their way even relatively minor characters would get a future turn in the spotlight.
"Someone on Twitter said, 'I would watch the hell out of a Rosalie Aprile origin story,'" Lambert said with a laugh. "I was like, 'Yes, I'd watch that movie!'"
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