We learned back in March that In The Heights, the movie adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda's pre-Hamilton stage musical, would be joining several other Warner Bros. films in shifting its release date given cinema closures thanks to the pandemic. Unlike some of those others, it didn't score a new date – but now it has, with the studio announcing a new slot of 18 June next year.
That's roughly a year later than planned, but even given that the film was all but finished, the filmmakers felt that it needed a summer vibe and was best suited to the big screen. So it has scored a sweet spot early next summer.
With Jon M. Chu in the director's chair, Heights finds Hamilton veteran Anthony Ramosinheriting the lead role of Usnavi, 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.
Check out the trailer below...