Lin-Manuel Miranda is tickin’ ahead…
The first trailer has been released for tick, tick…BOOM!, directed by the 41-year-old Puerto Rican actor, singer, songwriter, rapper, director, producer, and playwright.
It’s a film adaptation of Jonathan Larson’s autobiographical pre-Rent musical.
Starring Andrew Garfield in the Larson-inspired lead role, Netflix’s tick, tick…BOOM! will hit the streaming service and theaters this fall.
Garfield plays Jon, a young theater composer who’s waiting tables at a New York City diner in 1990 while writing what he hopes will be the next great American musical. As described by Netflix: Days before he’s due to showcase his work in a make-or-break performance, Jon is feeling the pressure from everywhere: from his girlfriend Susan (Alexandra Shipp), who dreams of an artistic life beyond New York City; from his friend Michael (Robin de Jesús), who has moved on from his dream to a life of financial security. Amidst an artistic community being ravaged by the AIDS epidemic, Jon feels the clock ticking and faces the question everyone must reckon with: What are we meant to do with the time we have?
Larson would not live to see the success of his “next great American musical,” dying at age 35 on January 25, 1996, the morning of Rent’s first Off Broadway preview. The cause of death was an aortic aneurysm caused by undiagnosed Marfan’s Syndrome.
The trailer begins with Garfield singing “Boho Days,” a song from the earliest incarnations of tick, tick…BOOM! It was the title song when Larson first performed the musical as a one-man show in 1990.
The film, which also stars Joshua Henry, MJ Rodriguez, Bradley Whitford, Tariq Trotter, Judith Light and Vanessa Hudgens, will mark Miranda’s feature directorial debut.
In 2001, Miranda, then 21, was writing In The Heights when he attended an Off Broadway revival of tick, tick…BOOM! In 2014, Miranda, who would later say that Rent inspired him to begin writing musicals, portrayed Jon in a two-week Encores! production of tick, tick…BOOM!
The film adaptation of Miranda’s In The Heights, directed by Jon M. Chu, hit theaters and HBO Max today.