Netflix has unveiled a new trailer and poster for Lin-Manuel Miranda’s directorial debut Tick, Tick… Boom! in what is turning out to be a major year for movie musicals. Starring Andrew Garfield as the theater composer Jonathan Larson, Tick, Tick… Boom! is set in the 1990s and traces Jonathan’s journey from waiting tables to writing Rent, one of the most acclaimed musicals of the last couple of decades.
After a teaser that was released three months ago, the first full trailer introduces Garfield's Larson, “on the cusp of his 30th birthday,” dissatisfied with life and harboring a dream to write “what he hopes will be the next great American musical.” As Larson tells everybody that he meets, he has been hard at work on his musical for 8 years, and there’s only so much longer that he can go on. Plagued by feelings of self-doubt and insecurity, Larson charges on. There's also an element of tragedy to his story that the trailer briefly foreshadows.
Garfield is firmly in the thick of his experimental phase, something that can often be observed with actors who’ve worked mainly on big-budget films within the studio system early in their careers. After playing Spider-Man in two films for Sony, Garfield has gone on to work with directors such as Martin Scorsese, Mel Gibson, David Robert Mitchell, Ramin Bahrani, Gia Coppola, and most recently, Michael Showalter.
This has also been a big year for Miranda, whose In the Heights was given the big-screen treatment by director Jon M. Chu in June. While the film got positive reviews, it didn’t quite perform at the box office and failed to recover its modest $55 million budget. Miranda then voiced the titular character in Netflix’s Vivo. In November, his music will be featured in Walt Disney Animation’s 60th feature film, Encanto.
Despite what it seems, others have also dipped their toes in the world of musical filmmaking in 2021. Take, for instance, director Stephen Chbosky, who helmed the film adaptation of the Broadway hit Dear Evan Hansen. And then there’s Steven Spielberg, who is all set to release the first musical of his career, an adaptation of the classic Broadway hit West Side Story, due out in December.
Tick, Tick… Boom! also stars Alexandra Shipp, Robin de Jesús, Joshua Henry, Mj Rodriguez, Bradley Whitford, Tariq Trotter, with Judith Light and Vanessa Hudgens. The film will play in select theaters on November 12, before arriving on Netflix on November 19. You can check out the trailer and poster here, and read the official synopsis below:
Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winner Lin-Manuel Miranda makes his feature directorial debut with tick, tick…BOOM!, an adaptation of the autobiographical musical by Jonathan Larson, who revolutionized theater as the creator of Rent. The film follows Jon (Academy Award nominee and Tony Award winner Andrew Garfield), 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. 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, who dreams of an artistic life beyond New York City; from his friend Michael, who has moved on from his dream to a life of financial security; amidst an artistic community being ravaged by the AIDS epidemic. With the clock ticking, Jon is at a crossroads and faces the question everyone must reckon with: What are we meant to do with the time we have?
