Richard Linklater’s ambitious Oscar winner “Boyhood” took 12 years to film, following the life of a boy from the age of six until he turned 18, but that’s nothing compared to how long the director’s next project will take.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Linklater has cast Ben Platt (who’ll soon be seen upcoming Netflix comedy “The Politician”), Blake Jenner (“Glee”) and Beanie Feldstein (“Booksmart”) in an adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s Broadway musical “Merrily We Roll Along”, based on the 1934 play of the same name by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman.
“Merrily We Roll Along” follows Franklin Shepard, a composer of Broadway musicals who abandons his friends and career to become a Hollywood producer, with the story beginning at the height of his Hollywood fame and then moving backward in time by showing vignettes from different stages in his life over a 20-year period.
Jenner will play Shepard, with Feldstein playing Shepard’s longtime friend, theatre critic Mary Flynn. Platt will play Shepard’s former best friend and lyricist Charles Kringas.
THR reports that principal photography for the first segment of the film has already been completed.
“I first saw, and fell in love with ‘Merrily’ in the ’80s and I can’t think of a better place to spend the next 20 years than in the world of a Sondheim musical,” said Linklater. “I don’t enter this multi-year experience lightly, but it seems the best, perhaps the only way, to do this story justice on film.”
Look for “Merrily We Roll Along” to be released in 2040 or so.
