Hallmark Screenwriter Wants Lin-Manuel Miranda For This Musical Movie Idea

With “In the Heights,” “The Little Mermaid,” “Tick, Tick... Boom” and more, Lin-Manuel Miranda is pretty busy with quite a few different projects, but screenwriter Julie Sherman Wolfe’s hoping he might consider working on one more: a Hallmark movie musical on Broadway!

A longtime writer for the network, Wolfe (“The Christmas Club,” “Christmas in Montana”) mentioned her latest idea to International Business Times at Christmas Con 2019 last month before later going into detail about it during a phone interview.

The concept: A woman wishes her life was just like the Hallmark movies she’s always watching, not realizing she already has everything (and everyone) she needs to live the life she wants.

It’ll take waking up inside of a full-on Hallmark movie town and going through all of the traditions, tropes and festivals of all of the different seasons — and not the regular seasons but the Hallmark ones — to discover the love and joy she had in her life all along.

The audience members will watch as the woman sings, dances and bakes though Winterfest, Countdown to Valentine’s Day, Spring Fling, June Weddings, Summer Nights, Fall Harvest and Countdown to Christmas, all leading up to her finding the Hallmark spirit she has within.

“Also, she should have a boyfriend that’s very nice, and he is the one for her, but she’s just not willing to see it because she wants this fantasy Hallmark boyfriend,” Wolfe told IBT. “He’s in it with her, but he sort of just keeps showing up, and she doesn’t recognize him as that guy until the end when she realizes she’s in control, she can make her own happiness and realizes what she does have in him, too.”

She continued: “Ultimately, the lesson should be that you don’t need to wish to be in one of these [movies] because if you want, your life can be [one]. You just have to be willing to let that happen or make that happen for yourself. You can find a place that makes you happy or where it snows on Christmas or where you can volunteer and help the community. You can have that. You don’t have to be with a guy who’s an [expletive]. Maybe your male lead will not magically show up in your life on page 10, but if you put yourself where you want to be, then things happen.”

As a big fan of “Hamilton” and of Miranda, himself, the Hallmark writer would love to collaborate with him on this project and even shot her shot at working with Miranda by sending him a tweet in November.

Of why she thinks this musical with him would work so well, she explained that “there’s a million different songs that can be sung about waking up and being in the middle of a Hallmark Christmas movie. [It] lends itself to any number of song and dance situations.”

Plus, it would earn her major points with her son.

“My son would [flip], too, and die if Lin-Manuel even acknowledged the existence of me or Hallmark because he went as Hamilton for Halloween two years ago, we went to the show, we were super into it,” she said. “Like, really, really into it. You have no idea. I went and saw it by myself and got an amazing seat and couldn’t even tell him... I could never even show him pictures because he would kill me.”

Though she knows Miranda could easily take this pitch and knock it out of the park, she’s aware, of course, just how busy he is and that this might not be “edgy enough” for him. Still, as the composer for both “Moana” and “The Little Mermaid,” it’s clear Miranda has an interest in creating content the whole family can enjoy together.

And that’s precisely what Wolfe wants the “His Dark Materials” actor to hold onto while considering this Hallmark pitch.

“People across America go to Broadway and there’s a lot of shows that maybe they don’t want to take their kids to because there might be subject matter that they’re not comfortable with or might be a little too edgy,” she said. “But wouldn’t it be great to have a show that’s super happy and feel-good for the whole family, that is something that people just love? That everyone would go to? Especially with Christmas?”

Aside from trying to sell Miranda on the idea, Wolfe’s been trying to get Hallmark on board, too, but that’s proving to be slightly challenging because they “have to be willing to poke fun” at themselves a little bit.

While the pitch is a little outside of the box for Hallmark, and Wolfe hasn’t been able to convince them to move forward with it yet, she hopes to be able to do so in the future.

“It would be… not a spoof but a nudge to the tropes of Hallmark and why they’re so beloved but also poking a little, gentle fun at ourselves for all the different tropes, for all the different movies,” Wolfe told IBT. “…But, ultimately, it’s a love letter in a way. There’s a reason everybody loves these things.”

She added: “We can make fun of the tropes of Hallmark, but, in the end, it makes us happy, and it shows something to strive for. To find the place or town or job or person that makes us happy.”

This concept could work both as a Broadway musical and as a new Hallmark movie, but the former could be the next push in elevating Hallmark’s brand even further. A full-on Broadway musical — perhaps featuring some of the musically-skilled actors and actresses already part of the Hallmark family — to its catalog could be the next step for Hallmark after the company recently added a podcast and a Christmas Con sponsorship to its roster.