Warner Bros. Drops First 8 Minutes Of Movie Musical 'In The Heights' On YouTube

AT&T T subsidiary Warner Bros. is seeking to drum up audience interest in the new movie musical “In the Heights” by posting the film’s first eight minutes online.

What Happened: “In the Heights” is based on the 2007 Broadway production by Quiara Alegría Hudes and Lin-Manuel Miranda, which won the Tony Award as Best Musical. The show had been in touring companies from 2010 through 2012, but hasn't been widely seen on stage since.

A film version has been in various degreess of planning since 2008, initially at Universal Pictures, now a subsidiary of Comcast CMCSA, and later at the now-defunct Weinstein Company, but casting problems related to having Hispanic stars with strong box office appeal kept the project from moving forward.

Miranda, who gained greater audience popularity with his Broadway musical “Hamilton,” had initially planned to recreate the leading role he played in the stage version, but instead opted for a supporting part.

The new film’s leading actors – Anthony Ramos, Corey Hawkins, Melissa Berrera and Leslie Grace – are mostly unknown to movie audiences, while more famous performers Jimmy Smits, Marc Anthony and Daphne Rubin-Vega have smaller roles in the film and aren't prominently featured in the film's marketing.

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Why It Matters: Selling a film based on a property that has been out of circulation for nearly a decade and headed by little-known actors is a challenge on its own terms, but this is complicated by having the film open at a time when theaters are trying to lure back audiences that have been away for more than a year because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Furthermore, “In the Heights” has become a bit long in the tooth – it was filmed in the spring of 2019 and scheduled for a June 2020 release before being postponed due to the pandemic. In comparison, a filmed record of Miranda’s “Hamilton” planned for theatrical release was streamed over Walt Disney Co.’s DIS Disney+ last summer and became the second most-watched straight-to-streaming feature film of 2020 behind “Wonder Woman 1984.”

By posting the first eight minutes of “In the Heights,” Warner Bros. hopes to give audiences a greater appreciation of director John M. Chu’s adaptation of the work and the potential for Ramos to carry a production that could elevate him into film stardom. Warner Bros. held free advance screenings of “In the Heights” on Mother’s Day, as well as a presentation on June 4 at the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival.

The official world premiere is slated for June 9 at New York’s Tribeca Film Festival, with a release the next day both in theaters and on HBO Max.

(A scene from "In the Heights," opening theatrically on June 10. Photo courtesy of Warner Bros.)