The Sopranos creator David Chase has said he is “extremely angry” that the forthcoming prequel film The Many Saints of Newark is being premiered on HBO Max.

Discussing the day-and-date format, which will see the film open in cinemas and on the streaming platform at the same time, Chase said the situation was “awful”.

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“I don’t think, frankly that I would’ve taken the job if I knew it was going to be a day-and-date release. I think it’s awful,” Chase told Deadline, adding that he was “extremely angry” when he found out about the HBO Max release. “I still am [extremely angry].”

“If I was…one of those guys, if one of those executives was sitting here and I was to start pissing and moaning about it, they’d say, you know, there’s 17 other movies that have the same problem,” Chase went on.

“’What could we do? COVID!’ Well, I know, but those 16 other movies didn’t start out as a television show. They don’t have to shed that television image before you get people to the theatre. But we do. And that’s where we’re at.

“People should go see it in a theatre. It was designed to be a movie. It was…it’s beautiful as a movie. I never thought that it would be back on HBO. Never.”

An official synopsis for The Many Saints of Newark reads: “Young Anthony Soprano is growing up in one of the most tumultuous eras in Newark’s history, becoming a man just as rival gangsters begin to rise up and challenge the all-powerful DiMeo crime family’s hold over the increasingly race-torn city.

“Caught up in the changing times is the uncle he idolizes, Dickie Moltisanti, who struggles to manage both his professional and personal responsibilities — and whose influence over his impressionable nephew will help make the teenager into the all-powerful mob boss we’ll later come to know: Tony Soprano.”

The Many Saints Of Newark shared its official trailer earlier this summer and is currently scheduled to be released in UK cinemas on October 22.