Miranda Directs Andrew Garfield as ‘Rent’ Creator Jonathan Larson

‘Tick Tick Boom’ Trailer: Lin-Manuel Miranda Directs Andrew Garfield as ‘Rent’ Creator Jonathan Larson

The “Hamilton” creator’s directorial debut hits theaters on November 12, followed by Netflix the following week.

Lin-Manuel Miranda has already conquered Broadway with “In the Heights” and “Hamilton,” and he has proven his bona fides in film as an actor (“Mary Poppins Returns”), composer (“Moana”), and producer (“In the Heights”). So what’s next for Miranda? A spot in the director’s chair with his feature filmmaking debut “Tick Tick Boom.” Netflix has released a new trailer for the film, which stars Andrew Garfield as “Rent” creator Jonathan Larson. Following a world premiere at AFI FEST in Los Angeles, the film opens in theaters on November 12 and streams on Netflix starting the following week.

Here’s the official synopsis courtesy of Netflix:

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?

The film stars Academy Award nominee and Tony Award winner Garfield opposite Alexandra Shipp, Tony Award nominee Robin de Jesús, Tony Award nominee Joshua Henry, Emmy Award nominee Mj Rodriguez, Emmy Award winner Bradley Whitford, Tariq Trotter aka Black Thought of The Roots, with Emmy and Tony Award winner Judith Light, and Vanessa Hudgens.

The film is written by Tony Award winner Steven Levenson (who wrote the book for “Dear Evan Hansen”) and produced by Brian Grazer and Ron Howard for Imagine Entertainment, plus Julie Oh and Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Speaking to Jimmy Fallon earlier this year, Garfield said the following about working with Miranda: “You know Lin, he’s like a crazy mixture of the most precocious eight-year-old genius student of life that won’t stop talking and has a reference to everything, while simultaneously being one of the greatest creative geniuses of our time. It’s this weird combination of having that eight-year-old running around your ankles, but that eight-year-old has also written ‘Hamilton.’”

tick, tick…BOOM! | Official Trailer | Netflix

‘Tick, Tick… BOOM!’: Netflix Unveils Trailer, Key Art, Soundtrack For Adaptation Of Jonathan Larson Musical

Netflix released the trailer, key art and the first single from the film’s official soundtrack entitled “30/90” for tick, tick…BOOM!, the Lin-Manuel Miranda-directed film adaptation of Jonathan Larson’s autobiographical pre-Rent musical.

Starring Andrew Garfield as Larson, Netflix’s tick, tick…BOOM! will premiere in theaters on November 12, 2021 and will hit streaming a week later on November 19th.

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, of course, would not live to see the success of his “next great American musical,” dying at age 35 on Jan. 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.

New ‘tick, tick… Boom!’ trailer: Andrew Garfield welcomes everyone to the Netflix musical

The buzz around Lin-Manuel Miranda’s directorial debut, “tick, tick… Boom!,” will likely only grow louder now that the film’s full-length trailer has dropped, complete with an introduction from Best Actor contender Andrew Garfield as “Rent” creator Jonathan Larson.

“I’m Jonathan Larson,” Garfield says at the start of the new trailer, which like the previous teaser portions out the musical’s story: how Larson, a waiter at the Moondance Diner in New York City in the 1980s, toiled for years on what would become a generational musical. (In “tick, tick… Boom!,” that musical is called “Superbia”; in real-life, Larson wrote “Rent.”) In addition to Garfield, the film also stars Alexandra Shipp, Robin de Jesús, Joshua Henry, Mj Rodriguez, Bradley Whitford (as Stephen Sondheim), Tariq Trotter aka Black Thought of The Roots, Judith Light, and Vanessa Hudgens.

Miranda cast Garfield after seeing him on Broadway in 2018’s revival of “Angels in America.”

“I just left thinking, ‘Oh, that guy can do anything,’” the “Hamilton” creator and Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Award winner told the New York Times. “I didn’t know if he could sing, but I just felt like he could do anything. So I cast him in my head probably a year before I talked to him about it.”

For Garfield, playing Larson, who died on January 25, 1996, the day of the first off-Broadway preview for “Rent,” was a transformational experience. His mother died during production and Garfield has called his performance an honor to his late mom.

“Every frame, every moment, every breath of this film is an attempted honoring of Jon. And, on a more personal level, it’s an honoring of my mom,” he told the Times. “She is someone who showed me where I was supposed to go in my life. 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.

“I think that’s part of the reason I didn’t want this movie to end, because I got to put my grief into art, into this creative act,” he added. “The privilege of my life has been being there for my mother, being the person that gave her permission when she was ready. We had a very amazing connection, and now an audience will know her spirit in an unconscious way through Jon, which I just find so magical and beautiful.”

Lin-Manuel Miranda

Lin-Manuel Miranda is an American actor, singer, songwriter, rapper, producer, and playwright.

(born January 16, 1980)

He created and starred in the Broadway musicals In the Heights and Hamilton. His awards include a Pulitzer Prize, two Laurence Olivier Awards, three Tony Awards, three Grammy Awards, two Emmy Awards, a MacArthur Fellowship, and a Kennedy Center Honor in 2018.

Jonathan Larson

Jonathan David Larson was an American composer and playwright noted for exploring the social issues of multiculturalism, addiction, and homophobia in his work.

(February 4, 1960 – January 25, 1996)

Typical examples of his use of these themes are found in his musicals Rent and Tick, Tick… Boom! He received three posthumous Tony Awards and a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the rock musical Rent.

Andrew Garfield

Andrew Russell Garfield is an American-British actor.

(born 20 August 1983)

An alumnus of the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, he is the recipient of various accolades, including a Tony Award and a British Academy Television Award, and has been nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award, an Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and three British Academy Film Awards.