You Will Be Screened.
In an unexpected news drop, Universal Pictures announced that they will release the Broadway sensation Dear Evan Hansen this fall. The highly-anticipated movie event adapts the Tony Award winning musical (and biggest live-theatre phenomenon this side of Hamilton) to the big screen.
Written for the screen by Steven Levenson (who wrote the book to the stage musical), Dear Evan Hansen will include the catalogue of popular songs composed by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (The Greatest Showman, La La Land). The film is directed by Stephen Chbosky (Wonder, The Perks of Being a Wallflower).
More than just a taped presentation of the actual stage production (as Lin-Manuel Miranda‘s Hamilton was for Disney Plus), Universal’s Dear Evan Hansen is a proper film adaptation of the Best Musical winner. Think Miranda’s In The Heights, currently scheduled for release this June.
Ben Platt, who won the “Best Actor in a Musical” Tony for his landmark turn as the titular teen, will reprise his impassioned performance as the high school student who gets caught up in a lie following a tragedy. The lie escalates and compounds as it spreads through social media.
In the crucial roles of two parents, Julianne Moore will play Evan’s mother Heidi and Amy Adams will play Cynthia Murphy.
As the Murphy siblings, Kaitlyn Dever (Booksmart, Short Term 12) has been cast as Zoe and Colton Ryan (Little Voice, the Apple TV+ musical series) as Connor. Evan’s classmates Alana Beck and the “insanely cool” Jared Kleinman will be played, respectively, by Amandla Stenberg (The Hate U Give) and newcomer Nik Dodani.
Dear Evan Hansen will be open exclusively in theaters on September 24, 2021.