It’s a great day to be a musical fan! The trailer for Lin-Manuel Miranda‘s tick, tick…BOOM! is here, and even better, it’s not long before it arrives on Netflix.
Adapted for the screen by Steven Levenson, the musical was originally created by Jonathan Larson, who also created RENT. Of course, this means we can expect a bunch of catchy tunes.
tick, tick…BOOM! is Miranda’s debut as a feature film director, and if it’s as good as his previous works (Hamilton and In the Heights), then we might see him become a prestigious EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony) winner — Miranda only needs an Oscar to complete the set.
The film stars Andrew Garfield and follows his character Jon’s race against time to create something extraordinary. Set in 1990, Jon is a young theatre composer who works at a New York City diner to make ends meet, but dreams that he’ll one day write the next great American musical. Of course, that’s easier said than done, and Jon can feel life’s pressures mounting all around him.
The creative community he lives and works within is being ravaged by the AIDS epidemic, his girlfriend is keen to pursue a creative life outside of New York, and his friend Michael has given up on his creative dreams in order to find financial security.
“Lately, I’ve been hearing this sound… like a tick, tick, tick… like a time bomb,” he says in the trailer. “The fuse has been lit. The clock counts down the seconds. The flame gets closer, and closer, and closer, until all at once, everything explodes.”
Jon is faced with the question we all have to reckon with: what do we do with the time we have in this life? Garfield was nominated for an Academy Award in 2017 for Hacksaw Ridge and won a Tony for his work in Angels in America, so it’s safe to say he’s got the chops to star in a musical feature film.
Aside from Garfield, the film is absolutely packed with stars of the screen and stage. It co-stars Alexandra Shipp, Robin de Jesús, Joshua Henry, MJ Rodriguez, Bradley Whitford, Tariq Trotter, Judith Light, and Vanessa Hudgens.
tick, tick…BOOM! will premiere in cinemas and on Netflix this spring.
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