Richard Linklater has another ambitious project on his hands.
The director famously spent twelve years filming his Oscar-winning film Boyhood about the life of Mason Evans Jr. from the age of 6 until he leaves for college.
Linklater filmed part of the film each year between 2002 and 2014 to capture Ellar Coltrane’s real-life growth.
The filmmaker has now announced that he intends to adapt the musical by Stephen Sondheim and George Furth, Merrily We Roll Along, over the course of the next two decades.
“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,” Linklater said in a statement, via Variety.
“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.”
Blake Jenner will star as Broadway composer Franklin Shepard, who achieved wealth and fame with the help of his two now-estranged friends Mary Flynn, played by Beanie Feldstein, and Ben Plett who will portray Charley Kringas.
