One of 2016’s biggest rising stars, Lin-Manuel Miranda is proving that his departure from his record-breaking 16-time Tony Award winning show ‘Hamilton’ is by no means the end for him. He’s now working on some of the biggest movies Hollywood has to offer over the next couple of years.
Lin-Manuel Miranda is on the rise after ‘Hamilton’
Since departing ‘Hamilton’, he has been working on the soundtrack for the recently released animated Disney blockbuster ‘Moana’ starring Dwayne Johnson. He even got to lend his own vocals to one of the songs, ‘You’re Welcome’, which was sung by Johnson in the film but featured as a duet with Miranda and Jordan Fisher in the end credits. But his work with Disney doesn’t end there. He’ll write the score for the upcoming live action remake of ‘The Little Mermaid’ with Alan Menken, though little more information about the film has been released thus far.
The main thing we’re looking forward to is seeing him star in Rob Marshall’s ‘Mary Poppins Returns’ opposite Emily Blunt in 2018. It’s the sequel to the 1964 Disney musical, and he’ll play a street lamplighter named Jack; a role which so far sounds like an equivalent to Dick Van Dyke’s Bert character. Most unfortunately, he won’t be writing any lyrics for the film, but will leave that to Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman. Before that though, he’ll appear as The Genie in next year’s school comedy drama ‘Speech & Debate’, a movie based on the play by Stephen Karam.
More: Lin-Manuel Miranda unveils ‘The Hamilton Mixtape’
One of the more exciting post-Hamilton announcements was made in the Spring of 2016, when it was revealed that Lin-Manuel Miranda would star in the feature musical adaptation of his other Tony Award winning Broadway production ‘In The Heights’ for which he wrote the music. Jon M. Chu (‘Step Up 2’, ‘Now You See Me 2′) has signed on to direct with Marc Klein adapting the screenplay from Quiara Alegria Hudes’ musical book. Miranda plays Usnavi, the narrator and bodega owner in Washington who’s seriously considering returning to his home nation of the Dominican Republic despite certain things that are keeping him in America.
Most recently, Miranda was confirmed as a creative producer on the film adaptation of Patrick Rothfuss’ fantasy book series ‘The Kingkiller Chronicle’, which will apparently also spawn a television series to go alongside it. We imagine Miranda’s filmography will only continue to get more impressive as the months wear on because it seems like his ‘Hamilton’ career has catapulted him towards all the right people and the demand for his creative touch is higher than the demand for ‘Hamilton’ tickets.
