Encanto hit theaters back in November, but it wasn’t until the movie hit Disney+ last month that it became one of the most talked-about animated movies of the last year. Not only did Encanto just win the Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature, but its soundtrack is becoming a chart-topper. In fact, “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” just surpassed Frozen‘s “Let It Go” on the Billboard charts. Lin-Manuel Miranda, who is known for creating the music for In the Heights and Hamilton as well as recently directing Andrew Garfield inย Tick, Tick… Boom!, wrote the music for Encanto. During a recent chat with Bloomberg, Miranda opened up about the success of “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” and revealed it was a surprise.
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“By the time I got back [from vacation], ‘We Don’t Talk About Bruno’ had kind of taken over the world along with the rest of the Encanto soundtrack,’” Miranda said with a laugh. “It helps you have the perspective of, ‘The opening weekend is not the life of the movie. It’s just the very roughest draft.’ Two months out, people are talking about Bruno, and his whole family.”
“I was saying to a friend: I think this is my ‘Send in the Clowns,’” Miranda explained. “‘Send in the Clowns’ was Stephen Sondheim’s only chart-topper. Who would have guessed out of the millions of songs he wrote that it would be ‘Send in the Clowns’? It feels random in one sense.”
“But on the other hand, we’ve all been locked up for two years,” he continued. “The notion of a bunch of voices happening within one home feels very resonant, with hindsight. There’s kind of a part for everyone to play in singing along with the song. If you’re not bopping to this melody, another melody is coming along in two seconds because almost every character gets a little feature in it.”
The success of “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” makes it the biggest single from Disney’s library of animated films in 26 years. It joins other Disney favorites such as “A Whole New World” from Aladdin which peaked at #1 in 1993, “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” from The Lion Kingย and “Colors of the Wind” from Pocahontas, both of which reached #4 on the Billboard charts. According to Billboard, “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” was streamed 29 million times in one week, which made it jump from #50 to #4.
Encanto is now streaming on Disney+.ย
