tick, tick... BOOM!

Production Budget Analysis

The production budget for tick, tick... BOOM! (2021) has not been publicly disclosed.

CAST: Andrew Garfield, Alexandra Shipp, Robin de Jesús, Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, Ben Levi Ross, Jonathan Marc Sherman DIRECTOR: Lin-Manuel Miranda CINEMATOGRAPHY: Alice Brooks PRODUCTION: Imagine Entertainment, 5000 Broadway Productions

Box Office Performance

Theatrical box office data is not publicly available for tick, tick... BOOM! (2021). This may indicate a limited release, direct-to-streaming, or a release predating modern box office tracking.

Profitability Assessment

Insufficient publicly available data to assess profitability.

INDUSTRY IMPACT

PRODUCTION NOTES

▸ Development

Producer Julie Oh was first inspired to bring Tick, Tick... Boom! to the screen after seeing Lin-Manuel Miranda star in the 2014 production at New York City Center as part of Encores!. After viewing a New York Times article by Miranda about how Tick, Tick... Boom! inspired him when he saw the Off-Broadway production in 2001, she felt it was important for the story to become a film. Oh felt the only director who would be able to do so was Miranda, who immediately expressed interest after she reached out to him. Oh and Miranda began formal discussions about the film while he was in London filming Mary Poppins Returns.

The film was announced in July 2018 with the news that Miranda would make his directorial debut with the musical adaptation, with Imagine Entertainment and Julie Oh producing and Dear Evan Hansen's Steven Levenson penning the script. Miranda, Levenson, and Oh treated the process like creating a musical, including holding a secret workshop at the United Palace in Washington Heights on July 16, 2018. It was during this stage that Andrew Garfield joined the process, having finished his run in the Broadway revival of Angels in America the day before. The team set a production start date of March 2020, in order to give Miranda and Levenson time to conduct research, and for Garfield to take formal vocal and piano training.

By June 2019, Netflix had acquired the film, with Andrew Garfield the top choice to star. In January 2020, it was also announced that choreographer Ryan Heffington would be working on the film.

▸ Writing

In order to adapt the musical for film, Miranda and Levenson conducted a significant amount of their own research. This included interviews with friends, family and colleagues such as Charleston, Roger Bart, Matt O'Grady (whom Michael is based on), and Ira Weitzman. Both Weitzman and Bart became characters in the film, played by Jonathan Marc Sherman and Joshua Henry respectively, as a direct result of these conversations. Larson's sister Julie, who was a producer on the film, discouraged Miranda and Levenson from sanitizing Larson's image, telling them to "get all the warts. Get all of that good stuff." Bart recalled that Larson could be "a pain in the ass" when his work was not being received the way he wanted, but he was generous to his collaborators once in the rehearsal room. This insight heavily influenced Larson's portrayal in the finished film.

Miranda and Levenson also accessed the Jonathan Larson Papers at the Library of Congress, in which the original scripts and demo tapes for Superbia, 30/90, Boho Days, and Tick, Tick... Boom! exist. Scenes from these scripts were used to create new scenes for the film: for example, a section where Larson recalled receiving feedback from a man named "Robert Rimer" at a musical theater workshop was adapted for the film, with "Rimer" replaced by the man's real name, Stephen Sondheim. In one early draft, Larson wrote that Susan's green dress was a commission made by a fashion designer/fellow waiter at the Moondance Diner named Carolyn: this led to the creation of the character Carolyn, played by Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, for the film.

The screenplay features a framing device loosely inspired by the Auburn script of Larson performing the monologue with two other performers, in this case Roger and Karessa, the former of whom is inspired by Roger Bart's role as background vocalist for performances of Boho Days and Tick, Tick... Boom!.

▸ Casting

Garfield was confirmed to star in October with Alexandra Shipp, Vanessa Hudgens, and Robin de Jesús joining in November 2019. Joshua Henry, Judith Light, and Bradley Whitford would join in January 2020.

Jordan Fisher, who had starred in Rent: Live, was meant to appear in the film as a character named "Simon" but due to the film's delays his wedding was scheduled on the same day his scene was to be shot, so he was replaced by Noah Robbins. However, the scene was ultimately cut from the film. Fisher's name had been listed on the film's casting announcements, and press reports continued to list both him and Robbins as members of the cast even after the film's release.

▸ Filming & Locations

Principal photography began as scheduled in March 2020. However, the production only filmed for eight days before the COVID-19 pandemic forced a shutdown, with the last day of filming taking place on March 12, 2020 outside of Larson's real apartment at 508 Greenwich Street. During the hiatus the cast, crew, and producers held weekly meetings on Zoom, which were colloquially referred to as "Tick, Tick... Zooms!". and wrapped in November 2020. Location shoots included the Delacorte Theater in Central Park for "Why", the Underground Theater at the Abrons Arts Center (part of the Henry Street Settlement) for the musical theater workshop scene, Teatro LATEA at the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural and Educational Center for Susan's dance recital, and the dance studios at Hunter College for the Superbia workshop.

The singing in the finished film is a mix of actors lip-syncing to pre-recorded tracks, re-recording their vocals in post-production, and singing live on set, with the choice to use one or the others dependent on the environment and tone of the scene. In the case of "Why", Garfield felt the emotions in the pre-recorded playback track were insufficient, and so sang the song live during filming at the Delacorte Theater in March. The team had hoped to include more locations associated with Rent, such as Tompkins Square Park and the Life Cafe in the East Village, but COVID restrictions resulted in most of these scenes being moved to the diner. The film's Superbia workshop montage consists of footage of the actors lip-syncing to a playlist compiled by Miranda, including songs from American Idiot and Hair: the last song on the playlist was "Seasons of Love".

During filming in late 2020, rumors leaked that Garfield was to make a return appearance as Spider-Man/Peter Parker in the then-unnamed upcoming Spider-Man film. Miranda approached Garfield on-set to ask if he was in it, to which a flustered Garfield gave an unconvincing denial.

▸ Post-Production

Andrew Weisblum served as the initial editor of the film up to the first development screening. Due to the film's COVID delays, he had to leave to work on Darren Aronofsky's The Whale and was replaced by Myron Kerstein. Miranda's original assembly cut ran 2 hours and 20 minutes, whereas he preferred the film to run less than two hours. The first scene at the diner during "30/90" was originally a different scene with Michael and Jonathan packing up Michael's things at their apartment. During preparation for reshoots, Kerstein pitched the scene at the diner so the sequence could introduce the characters of Freddy and Carolyn, minimizing time needed later in the film: he was alarmed when Levenson and Miranda shot a four-page scene in response, though he was relieved to learn they were open to cutting dialogue if needed. Likewise, they would need the context of not just Larson's death, but his legacy through his most well-known show, Rent. Miranda did not want this information conveyed through onscreen text at the end, despite Kerstein joking this is traditional with even critically-acclaimed biopics. Miranda argued such a method was too obvious, and that the information needed to be incorporated into the film in a natural way. The team eventually settled on documentary-style bookends that combine narration, archival footage, and recreated Betacam footage, which Kerstein described as bringing the film "full circle" and thus allowing the information to be an effective part of the film's storytelling. The cameo was Sondheim's last film appearance before his death on November 26, 2021.

▸ Music & Score

In directing the film's musical sequences, Miranda borrowed heavily from his experience working with Jon M. Chu on the film adaptation of his musical In the Heights, namely balancing out a realistic approach versus allowing the musical sequences to exist in Jonathan's head. Cinematographer Alice Brooks highlighted "Sunday" and "Swimming" as two particularly challenging sequences, as the two exist in Larson's head more so than other songs in the film. The scenes were conceptualized between Miranda, Brooks, Levenson, the assistant director, the storyboard artist, and the production designer in a collaborative process akin to theater, based on making discoveries at each step. For "Swimming", Miranda came up with the idea for the "30" at the bottom of the swimming pool to turn into a treble clef, and thus the pool floor becoming sheet music, during a scouting visit to the pool with Brooks. Although David Armstrong is credited as Andrew Garfield's swimming double, Garfield performed all of the swimming in the film himself: his father Richard Garfield is the head coach of the Guildford City Swimming Club and had trained him in the past. Miranda recalled that Armstrong turned to him after watching Garfield's swimming and declared, "I can't swim that fast." The elder Garfield was originally supposed to cameo as the man whom Jonathan tries to overtake in the pool, but he was unable to come to New York for the shoot due to the film's COVID delays. This included the actors who inspired him, particularly Peters for her role in Sunday in the Park with George, but also his future collaborators in Pascal, Rubin-Vega, and Heredia, as well as cast members from shows that Miranda considers "direct descendants" of Larson's work: Malone appears dressed as Big Alison from Fun Home, while Goldsberry and Soo wear the colors and strike the pose of the Schuyler sisters from Miranda's own Hamilton.

AWARDS & RECOGNITION

Summary: Nominated for 2 Oscars. 39 wins & 115 nominations total

Awards Won: ★ Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy — Andrew Garfield ★ Detroit Film Critics Society Awards 2021 — Lin-Manuel Miranda ★ Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor — Andrew Garfield

Additional Recognition: ! Award ! Date of ceremony ! Category ! Recipient(s) ! Result !

!scope="row" rowspan="4"|Detroit Film Critics Society Awards

!scope="row" rowspan="4"|Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Awards

!scope="row"|Palm Springs International Film Festival

!scope="row" rowspan="2" | Golden Globe Awards

!scope="row"|AACTA Awards

!scope="row"|Screen Actors Guild Awards

!scope="row" rowspan="8" |Hollywood Critics Association Awards

! scope="row" |ACE Eddie Awards

!scope="row"|American Film Institute Awards

!scope="row" | Directors Guild of America Awards

!scope ="row" rowspan="2" | Critics' Choice Movie Awards

! scope="row" | Producers Guild of America Awards

!scope="row" | Writers Guild of America Awards

!scope="row" | Casting Society of America

! scope="row" rowspan="2" | Academy Awards

!scope="row" rowspan="7"| Satellite Awards

! scope="row" | GLAAD Media Awards

! scope="row" | MTV Movie & TV Awards

CRITICAL RECEPTION

The film was universally praised for its adaptation of the original musical, with Vulture's Jackson McHenry highlighting the expanded cast and depiction of the world of the show. Garfield and de Jesús's performances were particularly praised, due to Garfield's surprising musical ability and de Jesús's starring turn in a film after largely working in theater. Jessica Derschowitz of Entertainment Weekly dubbed the film a "totem for the thrills and trials of making art, with all the sacrifices and empathy it requires", also praising it as a tribute to Larson. Miranda's directing debut was also praised, particularly due to the challenge of adapting the material. Variety's Peter Debruge noted that despite Miranda's own personal connection to Larson's story, his direction seemed devoid of ego and purely focused on centering Larson.

The film's choice to contextualize Larson's career and legacy through the documentary-style bookends was criticized even by positive reviewers. McHenry noted it reduced Larson to his most successful work and the film was stronger when the character was telling his story.

In 2023, it ranked number 38 on Time Outs list of "The 40 Best Musical Movies of All Time," writing that while not for everyone, the film is "an ideal entry point for sceptics." It also ranked number 15 on Screen Rants list of "The 35 Best Musicals of All Time." Parade ranked it at number 36 on its list of the "67 Best Movie Musicals of All Time," calling it the "most invigorating snapshot of the all-consuming struggle of a creative since Brad Bird's layered masterpiece Ratatouille."