(UPDATE: 5/12/20 – The release of film adaptation of In The Heights has been delayed until the summer of 2021 because movie theaters have been closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Though I wouldn’t be shocked if it ended up landing on Disney+ before then…)
Before Lin-Manuel Miranda became a household name for writing and starring in the hit musical Hamilton, before he was nominated for an Oscar for music from the Pixar movie Moana, before he was a supporting character in the movie Mary Poppins Returns or the HBO series His Dark Materials…
Before all these things, Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote and starred in a hip hop/Latin musical called In The Heights based on the New York neighborhood he grew up in – Washington Heights.
The show was a big hit, running on Broadway from 2008 – 2011 and winning four Tony awards, including Best Musical.
Lin-Manuel Miranda and the Broadway cast of In The Heights from the 2008 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
The development of a movie version of In The Heights seemed inevitable, especially with the subsequent phenomenal popularity of Hamilton. But there was a holdup because the film rights were held by the Weinstein Co., which was driven into bankruptcy by the numerous sexual harassment allegations and criminal charges against movie producer Harvey Weinstein. But when the bankrupt studio failed to put Heights into production by 2017, the rights reverted to Miranda and the show’s playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes. Warner Bros. reportedly paid $50 million for the rights to the play.
The movie, directed by Crazy Rich Asians Jon M. Chu, is slated for release in the summer of 2020, and the trailer for it just dropped earlier this week. And I could not be more excited about a new movie musical.
Here’s the trailer:
And finally:
Here’s a BroadwayCon panel from 2018 on In The Heights
Part 1
Part 2