5 Directors Who Could Bring Broadway Sensation 'Hamilton' To The Big Screen

This morning’s record-breaking haul of 16 Tony nominations has confirmed what’s become increasingly clear since January 2015: “Hamilton” is one of the biggest things in pop culture right now. When it debuted off-Broadway at the start of last year, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s stage musical — which tells the story of founding father Alexander Hamilton through a dazzling mix of hip-hop, R&B, pop, soul, and showtunes, performed by a diverse cast — earned once-in-a-generation reviews, and everyone from President Barack Obama to Meryl Streep have been singing its praises. And with night after night of sell out performances, it’s easier to get tickets to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory that to see the “Hamilton.” And Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory is fictional.

“Hamilton” is also the rare musical — the first in decades, really — to have a cultural impact that’s already spread far beyond Broadway. The cast performed at the Grammys, the soundtrack has managed to crossover and top the Rap Album chart, and has since gone Gold, Amazon has sold out of the tie-in book, and it’s one of a only a handful of musicals ever to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Inevitably, Hollywood is paying attention. Revolutionary fever is starting to spread, with Zack Snyder, Martin Scorsese and Bradley Cooper all linked to separate George Washington projects of late. And, as “Creed” helmer Ryan Coogler put it early this year, the show is “all people are talking about in California right now,” and “anyone who ever picked up a camera” would want to direct a movie translation.

We’re likely some way off from seeing it. No deal with a studio has yet been announced, and the show is set to tour and open internationally in 2017. Furthermore, Broadway shows often have contractual clauses preventing them from hitting movie theaters too early into a show’s run (another recent hit, “Matilda,” has to wait six years from the show’s 2013 New York premiere before a movie can be released, for instance). And even then, development hell can stop a movie musical in its tracks: “Les Miserables” took 27 years, megahit “Wicked” still hasn’t become a film thirteen years on, and Miranda’s previous hit “In The Heights” stalled.

But with virtually every filmmaker around obsessed with the idea, and Miranda already making Hollywood waves (he’s co-writing the songs for Disney musical “Moana” this year, and will star with Emily Blunt in the new “Mary Poppins” movie that Rob Marshall is directing), you can bet that a “Hamilton” movie is going to be one of the most talked-about projects for the next few years. So, to celebrate the show’s Tony success, we’ve picked out five of the filmmakers we think are most likely to end up with the gig. Take a look below, and let us know who you’d like to see tackle the movie in the comments.

Ryan Coogler

Ryan Coogler
That ‘top director’ we mentioned above? That was Ryan Coogler, who’s been burning like a bright, bright star since his Sundance debut “Fruitvale Station” a few years back. Last year, he made a startling studio debut with “Rocky” sequel spin-off “Creed,” and is currently beginning work on Marvel movie “Black Panther,” which will land in theaters in February 2018 (making him available at just the time we imagine a “Hamilton” movie might start going seriously towards production) That Coogler saw “Hamilton” and met with Miranda isn’t the only reason he’s been a name linked with the movie multiple times — he seems to share a certain temperament with Miranda, being both prodigiously young and insanely talented. The musical is a form that’s thwarted plenty of great filmmakers, but a canny use of needle-drops in “Creed” suggests Coogler has some facility for the place where music and movies meet, and after “Black Panther” he’ll likely have his pick of projects around town. Expect him to be high on lists when the project gets going properly.

Ava DuVernay

Ava DuVernay
It’s not necessarily essential that “Hamilton” has a non-white filmmaker, of course: the original stage show had a white director. But Miranda has stressed that a movie would retain the diversity of the theatrical production, and given that the show’s as much about the immigrant experience, and the impact that immigrants have had on American life, it would perhaps benefit an eventual movie to have an additional perspective in its creation that didn’t come from the background of, say, Rob Marshall. Alongside Coogler, that could also mean that Ava DuVernay becomes a strong contender. DuVernay broke out at Sundance a few years back with “Middle Of Nowhere,” but she became a household name with her political drama “Selma,” which showed she could play on a big studio canvas and come up with something just as powerful, nuanced and vibrant. The film’s take on politics, and its winning, populist sincerity, again crosses over in a Venn diagram with “Hamilton,” and she’s an avowed fan of the show. She’s busy, with multiple projects lined up in the next few years, but after “Intelligent Life,” “A Wrinkle In Time” and “The Battle Of Versailles” all wrap, she should be even more of a force to be reckoned with than she is right now, and in a prime position to make “Hamilton.”