from stage to screen

Lin-Manuel Miranda Is Turning His Breakthrough Play In the Heights Into a Film, Finally

BroadwayCon 2016

Lin-Manuel Miranda, Pulitzer-winning progenitor of a little show called Hamilton, first came to prominence almost ten years ago with In the Heights, a story about a Washington Heights bodega owner who wrestles with the idea of closing his shop to move to the Dominican Republic after inheriting his grandmother’s money. Miranda wrote the play in 1999, as a college sophomore, before taking it off-Broadway in 2007, and then legit-Broadway the next year. It was nominated for 13 Tonys and the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Interest in adapting the play into a film has been simmering for years, but Miranda, now the hottest playwright in America, is finally getting another chance to make the film happen. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Miranda will produce the film for Harvey Weinstein, though it’s unclear if he will star, as he’s now a decade older than the character. Marc Klein (Serendipity) wrote a draft of the screenplay for Universal, but Weinstein and Co. are now working off of a script by Quiara Alegría Hudes, who wrote the book for the original show. Kenny Ortega, best known among Millennials for the High School Musical series, was slated to direct a film of In the Heights in 2011, but producers didn’t love the $38 million budget; Miranda, who is set to star opposite Emily Blunt in the 2018 Mary Poppins Returns, will try to make the movie for $15 million now. Hamilton will make over $100 million by the end of its first full year.

Lin-Manuel Working on In the Heights Film