A bidding war is currently underway for a specially recorded presentation of Broadway’s mega-hit musical Hamilton by Lin-Manuel Miranda.
The Wall Street Journal has reported that rather than making a new movie musical at this stage, a recording of the original Broadway production Hamilton made over two nights may well be the first wer see of the musical on screen.
The recording features the Original Broadway cast with Miranda in the title role and according to reports even includes an interval.
The interesting question at the moment is whether we will see the special recording on the big screen or through an online streaming service like Netflix on our own screens at home.
Hamilton, a musical about American founding father Alexander Hamilton, which melds traditional musical theatre with hip hop tapped the cultural zeitgiest from the moment it opened in 2015. The show has already grossed more than $USD400,000,000 on Broadway alone. The show won 11 Tony Awards including Best Musical and 7 Olivier Awards inclduing Best Musical. The show continues to play on Broadway and in Chicago and London with a US Tour underway.
Sources told the Wall Street Journal that the stage show recording could sell for in excess of $USD 50 million with restrictions on its distribution or streaming until 2020-21 giving the shows producers another two years to reap the benefits of the stage production. At present the Broadway production is the highest grossing Broadway shows constantly bringing in between $3-4 million per week.
It is rumoured that a similar recording of Springstein on Broadway was recently purchased by Netflix for more than $USD20 million.
According to sources potential buyers include Netflix, Warner Brothers and Twentieth Century Fox.
