'The Sopranos' Prequel Movie Has It's Director And My Only Question Is Why?

(Variety) “New Line is moving ahead with its movie prequel to “The Sopranos,” hiring Alan Taylor to direct “The Many Saints Of Newark.”

New Line set up the feature film in March when it bought the script from “The Sopranos” creator David Chase. The film is set in the 1960s in Newark, New Jersey, amid conflicts between African-American and Italian residents. Over four days of rioting in July, 1967, 26 people died and hundreds were injured in Newark.”

Why is this a thing? On the heels of ‘Gotti’ I thought they were going to maybe let the genre of mob movies take a breather. Instead, we have full throttle ahead in adding a cinematic adaption to one of the best TV series’ ever made. Just, why??? Why is this necessary? Does anybody really want an origin story for Tony and the guys? Clem probably put it best in his blog about this from a few months ago: “Obviously nobody wants the movie to suck and reboots/prequels/remakes seems to be the main export out of Hollywood these days. But I always loved when they dabbled in the flashbacks of The Sopranos to see how Tony’s two families grew and evolved.” I don’t know, if I have as much optimism, but I guess Alan Taylor is an OK guy to be at the helm.

If you don’t know who Alan Taylor is, its probably because his two most notable movies were pretty bad. ‘Thor: The Dark World‘ and ‘Terminator: Genisys‘ were both pretty rough watches, but he has a great TV resume including episodes of ‘The Sopranos’. He also directed episodes of ‘Oz’, ‘The West Wing’, ‘Rome'(low key one of the best shows HBO ever made) ‘Deadwood'(see previous), ‘LOST’, ‘Mad Men’, ‘Boardwalk Empire’ and ‘Game of Thrones’.  Here are some highlights from episodes he has done:

There’s a lot more, but I’m working with what YouTube’s got. Does this excite you? Tweet me and let me know if I’m in the wrong here. ROLL THE MUSIC!

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