No movie studios have jumped at the chance to produce a multi-million dollar movie adaptation of Hamilton just yet (we have to do In The Heights first anyway), but Disney has found a way to bring Hamilton to theaters anyway. As reported by Variety, the insatiable mouse machine has swallowed up the rights to release a “live capture” of the original Broadway run of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s historical musical (with the original cast and everything) for something like $75 million, and it’s going to release the stage film in theaters on October 15, 2021.
That’s pretty far off (like, shockingly far off, considering this particular performance was film in June of 2016), but any wait should be worth it to finally see Hamilton, right? Well, bootleg videos of the show have been all over the internet for a while now (and we mean all over), but this will hopefully look and sound a little nicer than what some guy in the balcony was able to film on his phone.
This continues what has been an undeniably lucrative relationship between Disney and Miranda, with the studio tapping him to work on music for Moana, giving him a role in Mary Poppins Returns, and letting him handle the new music in its upcoming Little Mermaid remake. Variety says Warner Bros. was in the running to get this Hamilton stage film, but Disney would never let anyone come between it and a sure-fire hit from Lin-Manuel Miranda. Variety doesn’t say if the rights to an actual big-screen adaptation are tired into this at all, but it stands to reason that Disney will have an easier time making that happen someday if it can wrap its sea witch tentacles around Hamilton as much as possible. (Yes, Disney is both a mouse machine and a sea witch. It can be two things.)