You’ve heard of Hamilton. You’ve seen Lin-Manuel Miranda in Mary Poppins Returns and His Dark Materials. You’ve heard his brilliant soundtrack for Disney’s Moana. But the one you might have missed is In The Heights – the original Broadway show he pioneered years before that one about the Founding Fathers of America. Next year it’s hitting the big screen in an adaptation from Crazy Rich Asians director Jon M. Chu – a particularly exciting combination of talents. The first trailer has arrived here, teasing a vibrant, timely musical packed with hip-hop-salsa jams.
Taking the lead here is Anthony Ramos, one of Lin-Manuel’s frequent collaborators, who's previously popped up on screen in A Star Is Born and (monumentally underused in) Godzilla: King Of The Monsters . He’s Usnavi, the role Miranda originally inhabited, a bodega owner in the largely-Latin Washington Heights district of New York – a neighbourhood facing the pressures of gentrification and escalating rents. The film tells the story of Usnavi’s generation, a tapestry of characters exploring and navigating their personal identities as the neighborhood begins to change. It’s set predominantly over the course of a weekend, as the temperature soars, a power grid failure causes a blackout, and someone bags a winning lottery ticket. Plus Lin himself plays a small but important side-character, a Piragua seller, who you can briefly glimpse in the first trailer.
It’s a vibrant, rich show – if you’ve seen Hamilton you’d expect no less – and Chu seems to be bringing the same visual flair and authentic sense of identity that he did on his 2018 rom-com. Stay tuned for a trailer breakdown interview with Chu coming shortly to Empire Online. In The Heights comes to UK cinemas on 26 June 2020.