Sony Pictures Classic has acquired the worldwide rights to the film of the recent Broadway revival of Merrily We Roll Along.
The revival, which starred Jonathan Groff, Daniel Radcliffe and Lindsay Mendez, ran on Broadway last season and won four Tony Awards, including best revival of a musical. The filmed version of the Broadway show is set for a theatrical release, according to a spokesperson.
Maria Friedman directed the revival of the Stephen Sondheim show, which tracks the relationships between the three friends in reverse chronological order, spanning several decades and ending with their meeting in college. Groff and Radcliffe received Tony Awards for their roles in the production, as the composer Franklin Shepard and his friend and playwright Charley, which ran at the Hudson Theater from October 2023 through July 2024.
While the original production, which debuted on Broadway in 1981, abruptly closed after 16 performances, the show developed a cult-classic status, as Sondheim and book writer George Furth continued to make changes and generations of directors and producers sought to stage and improve upon the show, which features standards such as “Not a Day Goes By” and “Our Time.” Friedman’s production was critically acclaimed, due to its focus on the central characters and the stand-out performances from Groff, Radcliffe and Mendez.
In addition to Radcliffe, Groff and Mendez, the production stars Krystal Joy Brown, Katie Rose Clarke and Reg Rogers.
The film is produced by Sonia Friedman, David Babani, Patrick Catullo, F. Richard Pappas, RadicalMedia’s Jon Kamen and Dave Sirulnick. The deal was negotiated between Metzger Iwashina Media and Danny Passman of Gang, Tyre, Ramer, Brown & Passman on behalf of the producers, and Sony Pictures Classics.
A feature film adaptation, directed by Richard Linklater and starring Paul Mescal, Ben Platt and Beanie Feldstein, is also in the works and set to be shot over the course of 20 years.
“Sony Pictures Classics is the perfect home for our film. From the very beginning, they felt what we felt—that ‘Merrily We Roll Along’ is, at its core, a universal story about friendship: how it changes, how it lasts, and how it shapes who we become. This isn’t just a stage production captured on film—it’s something more intimate. The camera lets us see every flicker of feeling, every quiet shift, in a way that brings audiences closer than ever,” Friedman said.
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