Look around, look around, and note that even years after the original cast of Hamilton left the acclaimed Lin-Manuel Miranda musical, the show remains front-of-mind.
This week, John Bolton’s contentious memoir, The Room Where It Happened—which takes its name from one of the most popular Hamilton songs—will receive its official release. (On Twitter, Miranda borrowed another one of his famed lyrics to diss the former national security advisor.) In his latest piece, New York Times media columnist Ben Smith leaned on a Hamilton reference to describe a clandestine meeting between President Donald Trump, Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, and Facebook board member Peter Thiel (“Not the date, not who arranged the menu, the venue, the seating”). And on Sunday night, Disney released the first trailer for the highly anticipated Hamilton movie (#hamilfilm for the kids), which is set to drop July 3 on the streaming platform.
Shot in June of 2016, just before Miranda departed the show, the Hamilton film was initially set to receive a theatrical bow on October 15, 2021. But after the coronavirus pandemic forced movie theaters to close and shut down Hollywood productions around the globe, Disney bumped up the release by 15 months. Said Miranda in May after the shift was revealed: “I’m so grateful to Disney and Disney+ for reimagining and moving up our release to July 4th weekend of this year, in light of the world turning upside down. I’m so grateful to all the fans who asked for this, and I’m so glad that we’re able to make it happen. I’m so proud of this show. I can’t wait for you to see it.”
Directed by Tommy Kail, who won a Tony Award for directing the musical on Broadway, the Hamilton movie stars Miranda as its title character and features Leslie Odom Jr., Daveed Diggs, Renee Elise Goldsberry, Christopher Jackson, Jonathan Groff, Phillipa Soo, Jasmine Cephas Jones, Okieriete Onaodowan, and Anthony Ramos. The show won 11 total Tony Awards at the 2016 ceremony, with Odom, Diggs, and Goldsberry singled out for their performances. Miranda himself won awards for best score and best book, while Kail won best director of a musical.
That a filmed recording of the original cast existed was known long before Disney announced it had acquired distribution rights for the project. Previously, Miranda said he wanted to hold the film’s release long enough to allow more people to see the show in its intended form: live on stage. But with Broadway closed indefinitely, the only way anyone will be able to enjoy Hamilton for the foreseeable future is by subscribing to Disney+. As Miranda told Variety earlier this year, “What I’m most excited about is there will be a point at which, you all have that friend who brags, I saw it with the original cast. We’re stealing that brag from everyone. Because you’re all going to see it with the original cast.” More like the living room where it happens?
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