Lin-Manuel Miranda, Original In the Heights Team Celebrate 10 Years! Now If Only The Weinstein Co. Would Give Up the Film Rights.

We’re coming up on the tenth anniversary of the first time Lin-Manuel Miranda won the Tony for Best Musical (along with his talented co-creator, Quiara Alegría Hudes). To celebrate, he and some of the original cast and creative team of that endeavor, the 2008 Broadway smash In the Heights, will be appearing at BroadwayCon!

That’s right, BroadwayCon, the SDCC of the theater set, has announced today that they are hosting an In the Heights 10 Year Anniversary reunion panel featuring Usnavi himself, Miranda, as well as Karen​ ​Olivo​​ ​(Vanessa),​ ​​Olga​ ​Merediz​​ ​(Abuela​ ​Claudia),​ ​​Javier Muñoz​​ ​(original​ ​Ensemble,​ ​Usnavi),​ ​and​ ​​Alex​ ​Lacamoire​​ ​(Musical​ ​Director)​ ​and​ ​moderated​ ​by​ ​​Luis​ ​Miranda (who happens to be Lin’s dad!).

According to the release from BroadwayCon, the panel “will discuss the impact that this musical had on Broadway.” Hopefully, there’ll be some singing and rapping, too. I’m just saying, give the people what they want! BroadwayCon says that they will be announcing additional guests to the panel at a later date.

I can’t believe next year is In the Heights‘ 10-year anniversary. It really made an impact on me as a musical that captured a version of New York that I recognized and in which I could see myself. So I was, of course, thrilled when a film version was announced!

And then the Harvey Weinstein stuff came out.

This In the Heights film was being produced by The Weinstein Company, which as of now still has the rights, as reported by Deadline Hollywood. When the Weinstein sexual assault news broke, Hudes released the above statement asking The Weinstein Company to give up In the Heights in light of this terrible situation. That “as a woman, I can no longer do business with The Weinstein Company.”

Now, it would be possible to buy the rights back, but TWC shouldn’t be receiving any money for this. Not in light of everything they’ve done.

I would hate to think that a film version of this groundbreaking musical would be tarnished by all of this. TWC had better do the right thing.

In the meantime, if you want to get your In the Heights fix, make sure you’re at BroadwayCon this year. BroadwayCon runs from ​January​ ​26–28,​ ​2018 at the Jacob Javitz Center in New York City.

(image: Joan Marcus/In the Heights)

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Teresa Jusino

Teresa Jusino (she/her) is a native New Yorker and a proud Puerto Rican, Jewish, bisexual woman with ADHD. She's been writing professionally since 2010 and was a former TMS assistant editor from 2015-18. Now, she's back as a contributing writer. When not writing about pop culture, she's writing screenplays and is the creator of your future favorite genre show. Teresa lives in L.A. with her brilliant wife. Her other great loves include: Star Trek, The Last of Us, anything by Brian K. Vaughan, and her Level 5 android Paladin named Lal.

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