Director Richard Linklater Shares 20-Year MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG Film Will Resume Filming 'In a Few Months'

Director Richard Linklater has provided an update on the film adaptation of Merrily We Roll Along, which will be filmed over 20 years. In an interview with Variety at Zurich Film Festival, he shared that the fourth section, out of nine total, will begin filming soon.

“My progress report is this: It’s nine sections in 20 years, and in a few months, we are filming a fourth. So see you in 2040," he said.

He went on to acknowledge that there are some risks associated with the long shoot.

“That’s the only way to tell this story, but people go: ‘What if someone dies?’ There’s always some extreme thing that would prevent it from being made, but it usually doesn’t happen," he said. "You’ve got to be collaborating with the future and just work that into the equation.”

His film Boyhood was shot over the course of 12 years, but Linlater believes that Merrily is different.

"It’s very different from ‘Boyhood.’ I’ve always made music films, and it’s fun to be making a full-on musical. And it’s about friendship, long-term," he said.

Read the original story on Variety.

About Merrily We Roll Along

The movie, based on the musical by Stephen Sondheim, follows three friends throughout their lives and careers. The cast will be led by Paul Mescal as Franklin Shepard, Ben Platt as Charley Kringas, Beanie Feldstein as Mary Flynn, also starring Mallory Bechtel and Suffs alum Hannah Cruz.

The story begins in 1976 with Frank, who, having once been a talented composer of Broadway musicals, has now abandoned his friends and his songwriting career to become a producer of Hollywood movies. The show's narrative presents the events of the trio's lives in reverse chronological order, ending in 1957. 

Sondheim wrote both the music and lyrics for the musical, which features a book by George Furth. The original production was directed by Harold Prince. The recent Broadway production, directed by Maria Friedman, starred Jonathan Groff, Daniel Radcliffe, and Lindsey Mendez. The production was a hit, receiving 7 Tony nominations, and winning 4. The film adaptation was initially announced in 2019, two years before Sondheim's passing.