Lin-Manuel Miranda’s New Movie Debuts on Netflix

After charming legions of fans with his work on Hamilton, In The Heights, and Moana, Lin-Manuel Miranda is officially stepping into the director’s chair — and viewers can now check out his directoral debut in all its glory. On Friday, Netflix released tick, tick… BOOM! on its streaming platform, after the film was released in select theaters the week prior. This will give audiences the best chance yet to see the film, which adapts Rent creator Jonathan Larson’s semi-autobiographical musical of the same name.

In tick, tick… BOOM!, an aspiring theatre composer (Andrew Garfield) endures a midlife crisis as he approaches 30 and does not feel close to his dream. The film also stars Alexandra Shipp as Susan, Robin de Jesus as Michael, Joshua Henry as Roger, Judith Light as Rosa Stevens, Vanessa Hudgens as Karessa Johnson, and Bradley Whitford as Stephen Sondheim.

The musical first originated as a “rock monologue” performed by Larson in the early 1990s, with theatre producer Jeffrey Seller making plans to adapt it to Broadway following early productions of Rent in 1995. Following Larson’s death in 1996, the project was restructured by author David Auburn into a three-actor musical, and premiered Off-Broadway on May 23, 2001. Over the years, the cast of various productions of tick, tick… BOOM! has included Miranda, Leslie Odom Jr., Wilson Cruz, Neil Patrick Harris, Molly Ringwald, and Ciara Renee.

As Garfield recently revealed to The New York Times, working on tick, tick… BOOM! became incredibly personal for him, as the production allowed him to channel his grief following the sudden death of his mother.

“She is someone who showed me where I was supposed to go in my life,” Garfield explained. “She set me on a path. We lost her just before COVID, just before we started shooting, after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. So, for me, I was able to continue her song on the ocean and the wave of Jonathan’s songs. It was an attempt to honor him in his unfinished song, and her in her unfinished song, and have them meet.”

What do you think of the first trailer for tick, tick… BOOM!? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

tick, tick… BOOM! is set to be released in theaters on November 12th, before streaming on Netflix on November 19th.