Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Lisa Laman | Film | September 8, 2025
Over September 2025’s first weekend, Hamiltonfinally arrived in movie theaters. Walt Disney Pictures originally plunked down $75 million for the distribution rights to release a filmed version of Hamilton with its original cast. The initial plan in February 2020 was for the title to launch in theaters on October 15, 2021. Then COVID-19 happened. Those ambitions quickly changed into a July 2020 Disney+ debut instead. Five years later, to celebrate the Broadway show’s tenth anniversary, Lin Manuel-Miranda’s acclaimed production is finally hitting the big screen.
This release doesn’t just signify a long-awaited theatrical release plan finally coming together. It should also be a rallying cry for more filmed Broadway shows to come to movie theaters. Give the theatre nerds what they want, studios. It’s time way more filmed stage performances of the biggest musicals played in Cinemark/AMC multiplexes.
These Projects Already Exist…Put Them in Theaters
Disney’s Hamilton, of course, is not the first instance of a famous musical/stage show getting filmed and then released to the public. Cats famously arrived in people’s homes back in 1998. Rent: Filmed Live on Broadway, meanwhile, played in theaters as a two-night event in September 2008. The SpongeBob Musical: Live On Stage! aired on Nickelodeon, Diana debuted on Netflix, the list goes on and on.
Most of these, though, didn’t go to the big screen. That includes acclaimed productions like David Byrne’s American Utopia, which went straight to HBO despite having more glorious spectacle and visual precision than 99% of 2020s summer blockbusters. Only the occasional Waitress: The Musical has snuck into theaters, a tragedy since live theatre, like theatrical movies, are all about communal experiences. Bonding with strangers is part and parcel of the experience, not to mention having the talents of countless artists fill up your entire line of sight.
Bringing more of these projects (like that upcoming filmed version of Hadestown) to theaters is a sublime idea even beyond communal aspects. From a cynical business standpoint, these filmed musicals could fill in gaps in major studio release slates that are inspiring 2025’s box office blues. Sony’s Columbia/TriStar/Screen Gem divisions released eight theatrical films in summer 2013 and seven big screen titles in summer 2014. In 2024, Sony’s non-arthouse movie divisions only released four movies (counting Caught Stealing, which only played for four days in the summertime) in the entire season.
Lionsgate, meanwhile, had five major summer 2013 titles and only three in summer 2025. No wonder the box office is suffering with that drop off in titles across studios (plus the elimination of studios like 20th Century Fox). Imagine if Lionsgate and Sony filled up those gaps in their respective release slates with filmed versions of Hadestown, The Book of Mormon, and others shows. Movie theaters and moviegoers both would benefit. Studios just need to acquire and theatrically release these titles. No more putting them straight to streaming or home video like the days of 1998’s Cats.
Filmed Musicals Can Be Broadway’s Time Capsule Rather Than Killer
Speaking of business matters, one big hurdle to getting more of these into theaters is the producers of the stage shows themselves. Folks like stage musical financiers might see filmed recordings of these endeavors in theaters as a way of diluting Broadway profits. However, as of this juncture, there’s no indication that these filmed versions hurt ticket sales for live theatre. Hamilton’s been on Disney+ for five years and it’s still a monster on Broadway. Meanwhile, Fathom Entertainment is always bringing opera shows to movie theaters yet folks still go to the opera house.
Filmed versions of famous Broadway shows would only open up your program to new audiences who couldn’t previously access it. Folks who want to spend the cash to experience the unique and different sensation of watching these shows live can and will still do that. Box office figures from filmed versions of Broadway shows are an additional source of revenue, not a way of slashing Broadway ticket sales in half.
More importantly, the artistic value of these filmed musicals is their function as a snapshot of a certain place and time. As Jean Smart in Babylon once wisely said, cinema is a time capsule forever encasing on-screen inhabitants in amber. That power is quite useful in capturing on-stage actors who inhabited certain roles for months or (if they’d been with a production during its earliest workshop days) even years. Normally, stage shows, once they close, only exist in the memories of the program’s cast & crew and audience members.
With filmed versions of these undertakings, though, future generations can witness what made certain Broadway shows so remarkable. The intricate talent informing great performances, set design, directing, and other artistic attributes can fill up an entire movie theater screen for all the rest of time. In a sense, great Broadway spectacles never have to end with these filmed versions. Even when actors like Daniel Radcliffe or Patrick Page leave their limited Broadway engagements, their performances can keep entertaining audiences.
There’s so much emotional value alone in filmed versions of Broadway shows that it should be a no-brainer to commission and capture more of these productions. Bringing them to the big screen is also similarly obvious, particularly in how this venue can echo the communal joys of watching live theatre with strangers. Plus, as referenced earlier, there’s a deluge of people who simply can’t access stage show ticket prices. Theatrical cinema could offer a respite to that. Excellent modern shows like A Strange Loop should be seen by everyone, not just those with enough money to burn for a Broadway ticket.
Add to all of that the fact that movie studios like Sony Pictures and Disney are embarrassingly struggling to deliver year-round slates of theatrical movies and there are countless upsides to embracing more filmed versions of Broadway shows in multiplexes. More frequently combining the endless joys of live theatre with theatrical cinema’s plethora of pleasures would be a boon to all. Plus, studios embracing this style of cinema theatrically could lead to the realization of one of my dreams: seeing a recording of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark on the big screen. “A Freak Like Me Needs Company” transpiring on a gargantuan IMAX screen, that’s absolute cinema at its finest.
