WARNING: the following contains spoilers for The Many Saints of Newark, in theaters and on HBO Max now.
The Many Saints of Newark promised audiences the story behind how Tony Soprano was made, and yet, it never provided it. Focusing primarily on Dickie Moltisanti and the inspiration behind Tony pursuing the criminal life, the movie stopped short of showing what it was that made Tony into the charismatic and ruthless mob boss he was in The Sopranos.
One of the most formative events in Tony's career saw frequent mentions in the original series, and it would have been the perfect story to tell in the movie. But in holding back from telling it, The Many Saints of Newark may have set up the spin-off fans need to see.
At the start of The Sopranos, Tony enjoys a high-ranking status in the criminal organization of the DiMeo crime family. Part of that status was earned through his own blood relations, with his father, Johnny Boy, and his uncle, Junior both preceding him as major figures in the organization. Many Saints of Newark shows much of that childhood, but its timeline never quite reaches the point where Tony's real origin story unfolded.
Told like a mythic tale from his glory days, the story is proof he did not earn the entirety of his status in the DiMeo crime family based on nepotism. Part of it was earned after he and fellow up-and-comer Jackie Aprile robbed a high-stakes card game run by one of the most highly respected capos in the family, Feech La Manna. Referred to as "original Cosa Nostra," who was made in Sicily, robbing La Manna proved that Tony and Jackie were rising stars in the organization worthy of respect. That respect became the springboard that would one day launch each of them to lead the New Jersey area, and yet, the story of the robbery is not one Many Saints of Newark tells.
The movie focuses instead on Tony in his younger days, with him and Jackie robbing an ice cream truck instead of a high-stakes card game. It is as though the film deliberately sets out to show just how small of a criminal scale Tony operated on in his earliest days. Given just how important, formative and exciting the tale of the card game robbery would have been, the absence of its telling could well have the significance of its own. In the aftermath of the film, both the critics who hated and loved the prequel seem to still agree that Michael Gandolfini gave a valuable performance as Tony that they wanted more of.
And it could be that HBO plans to give more of exactly that. With series creator David Chase signing on to do more work with HBO on future projects, Many Saints of Newark could be seen as a sort of pilot for spin-off projects that will further expand the world of The Sopranos, and the decision to not tell the story of the La Manna card game in the movie could be setting it up to be told in another project.
There are doubtless plenty of other stories in Tony's past to be told. In the fallout of the card game, much is made of how more senior members of the crime family stuck their neck out for Tony and Jackie, with Jackie's older brother Richie being one of the most notable figures. It is also known that Ralph Cifaretto sat out the night of the card game, losing out on Tony and Jackie's subsequent bolster in reputation, and while he claims in the original series to have been sick, it would be a treat to see whether or not that was really a lie.
There are still questions that need answers and stories that need telling, and in setting up a possible spin-off, Sopranos fans can still hope that they will get to see in the future what they expected from Many Saints of Newark.
To see just how the story sets up Tony's tale, The Many Saints of Newark is currently playing in theaters and on HBO Max.