A Haunting New Trailer for James Gandolfini's Final Film, 'The Drop'

Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of James Gandolfini’s death, and today we got another reminder of the man we lost. Fox Searchlight unveiled the international trailer for the actor’s final film, The Drop, which hits theaters Sept. 17. (You can see the new clip at Empire. The original domestic one is below.) Written by Mystic River novelist Dennis Lehane, The Drop stars Tom Hardy as a Brooklyn bartender who gets in too deep with local gangsters, and Gandolfini as his complicit bar-owner cousin.

The film co-stars Swedish actress Noomi Rapace, a.k.a. the original Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and Matthias Schoenaerts, the Belgian actor who starred opposite Marion Cotillard in Rust and Bone. Judging from the trailer, both did a respectable job polishing their New York accents.  So did British actor Hardy, who reportedly hit it off with Gandolfini when they shot the film on location in Brooklyn. ”It didn’t hurt that we shot the movie in a bar,” director Michaël Roskam told USA Today. “I would look over my shoulder and see them sitting together at a table laughing and making jokes.”

Gandolfini’s character Marv has some obvious similarities to Tony Soprano: the bar, the accent, the mob connections. But everything about the actor’s body language shows that this is a different man. Whereas his Sopranos character radiated power and danger, Marv seems vulnerable and desperate. Roskam believes that this film might have opened up a new chapter in his career. “He was a little older…A new Gandolfini was emerging,” said the director in the same USA Today piece. “Unfortunately, we are not going to be able to see more of it. But I am happy that we had this beautiful glimpse.”

Photo credit: © Fox Searchlight