‘Crazy Rich Asians’ Sequel Update: Jon M. Chu Says “I Won’t Bring Everyone Back Unless It’s Worth It”
With Wicked conquering the Earth, the million-dollar question for filmmaker Jon M. Chu as he reaps the biggest box office opening of his career ($164.2M) is where, oh, where is the Crazy Rich Asians sequel?
The Warner Bros. movie broke glass ceilings not only on-screen for Asian and Asian American actors, but also at the box office with a $35.2M domestic opening, a $174.9M U.S./Canada take and close to $240M WW. A sequel was promptly announced by the studio following its opening in late summer 2018. The original trilogy of books are by Kevin Kwan with book 2 titled China Rich Girlfriend and the third, Rich People Problems. The movie blasted off the careers of Constance Wu, Henry Golding, Awkwafina, and Gemma Chan to name a few.
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The last we reported, the Crazy Rich Asians sequel remained in development with a draft by Amy Wang. Word was that the sequel would collapse the second and third book. Then in May 2022, it was announced that a spinoff of Crazy Rich Asians from Barry producer and scribe Jason Kim was in the early works, centering around Chan’s Astrid Young Teo and her romance with Charlie Wu, played by Harry Shum Jr. in the original movie. Both the sequel and spinoff would be tied to the novel China Rich Girlfriend, which in addition to covering Astrid and Charlie’s relationship, follows the Constance Wu and Henry Golding characters, Rachel and Nick, on a trip to Shanghai to find the former’s birth father. HBO is also reportedly kicking the tires at a Crazy Rich Asians series.
Chu told us on Crew Call that as far as part two goes, “I won’t bring everyone back unless it’s worth it. There’s too much on the line for everybody.”
Continued, the filmmaker, “I want the best thing. I want it to be worthy of what Crazy Rich Asians 1 was. We’ve tried all different versions. It’s hard because people think the first movie is like the book, but it actually is not. It’s the right spirit, but the plotting is very different. And so, you can’t just go and translate. And we’ve tried versions and the fact is, is that we just haven’t gotten there.”
“And there’s no way I’m dragging the audience back. There’s no way the bar is too high. So, in time when we when we get there, we will.”
There is hope, fans.
Exclaims Chu, “To me, that sequel right now is that the Broadway musical that we’re working on. That’s very exciting and very fun.”
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