‘In The Heights’ Creators To Weinstein Company: Give Up Movie Rights To Musical

In the Heights creators Quiara Alegría Hudes and Lin-Manuel Miranda are calling on the embattled Weinstein Company to give up its movie rights to the Tony-winning musical, citing the widening Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse scandal.

Miranda told Deadline last year that Hudes — who wrote the book for In the Heights — was “working on the screenplay” for a movie version of the smash show that won Best Musical in 2008. Today he tweeted his support for her call on TWC to “allow us to extricate In the Heights” from the company.

“Harvey Weinstein’s sexual predation is despicable enough, but combined with his staggering power it’s insidious, even devilish,” Hudes, who won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her 2012 play Water By The Spoonful, wrote in a social media post today (read it below). “Decades. He thrived on this. He built an empire on this.”

Hamilton creator Miranda — who wrote the music and lyrics for the 2016 Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical — then tweeted his support, saying: “As usual, Quiara does the prose the best. She speaks for us both.”

When Deadline asked Miranda in a Q&A last November whether In the Heights might be getting a movie adaptation, he replied: “Well, that one is in the works. The Weinstein Company has the rights. Jon Chu is going to direct. So, that one is in Quiara’s court right now. Quiara … is working on the screenplay as we speak. The Weinsteins’ track record is really good, and Jon Chu in particular, like, the sequences he’s made for some of those Step Up films were so extraordinary. I’m really excited to see how he stages some of these musical numbers in In the Heights. I think it’s a really inspired choice.”

Here is Hudes’ post from today, followed by Miranda’s supporting tweet:

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