Lin-Manuel Miranda Leaving 'Hamilton': Playwright Shares Plans To Persuade Latinos To Vote

Creator and star of the Broadway smash hit “Hamilton,” Lin-Manuel Miranda announced he was leaving the show on July 9 to work on a number of projects.

Apparently, one of the hottest items on Miranda’s agenda involves voters choosing the next president of the United States. The Pulitzer Prize winner plans to take some time to encourage Latinos to take active part in the elections by voting. “Our issues are on the table, from Puerto Rico to a wall to keep half of us out being a party platform,” Miranda said. “It’s important that we get out and vote.”

Among the other projects he has been working on is Disney’s live-action version of “Mary Poppins,” where he will star opposite Emily Blunt. Also with Disney, the playwright was responsible for creating the beautiful music of the movie “Moana,” the studio’s first-ever Polynesian princess and, perhaps the most awaited one of the list, an “In the Heights” film.

As for his upcoming film, the musical, set in Washington Heights in Manhattan, follows the story of a young man who inherits his grandmother’s small fortune and has to decided if closing his bodega and moving to Dominican Republic to retire is the right choice for him.

“As a kid from Queens, I’ve always loved bringing New York stories to film,” Harvey Weinstein told The Hollywood Reporter. “‘In the Heights’ and Lin-Manuel brought Washington Heights to Broadway back in 2008 and in the process turned the theater world on its head. The movie musicals of the 1950s were incredible, but In The Heights will revolutionize what movie audiences expect from the genre.”

There is still no word on who will be staring as the main character Usnavi, which Miranda played on Broadway but was 10 years younger than he is now.