Remember when Crazy Rich Asians became a record-breaking summer blockbuster? Well, that was seven years ago. Shortly after its success, there was an announcement of the novel’s sequel being in the works, but here we are still without one. However, director Jon M. Chu swears this time HBO Max has the “real thing” with the currently in-development TV spinoff.
When Crazy Rich Asians had its explosion moment in the summer of 2018, so did all the talent associated with it, including stars like Henry Golding, Awkwafina and Jon M. Chu, have had healthy careers since the beloved romantic comedy hit theaters that it’s seemed like there’s barely been time to fit in a followup in. Here’s Chu’s latest update:
It’s a real thing. We have scripts, and we’re waiting to be officially ready to go. Our cast will be there.
The “it” he’s talking about is a TV series that was reported to be in the works in February with the movie’s co-writer Adele Lim as its showrunner, producer and writer along with Chu and the novel’s author Kevin Kwan. In a recent interview with Esquire, Chu shared that scripts have been written and the production is all but ready to go. He also said this:
It's hard to do the continuation of the books, because our characters changed so much in the first movie. It’s so different [from] the books, actually, even though it feels like it’s the same. So you couldn’t go one-to-one. But we can use a lot of inspiration from the book to dig out more story from it.
Specifically, the untitled series is apparently drawing from Kevin Kwan’s first sequel, China Rich Girlfriend. These new comments from Chu come after Henry Golding said in April that Lim visited him and Gemma Chan to “talk about” their characters.
It definitely sounds like the next chapter to Crazy Rich Asians is finally moving forward this time, and that’s particularly exciting after so many years of brief talk about it not backed by much movement. This time, Chu’s talking about scripts and the key actors have attended meetings with the showrunner. I think it’s really happening!
As you might recall, Crazy Rich Asians came out in the summer of 2018 and made $239 million at the worldwide box office, which made it the best theatrical release for a romantic comedy since 2009’s The Proposal. Another movie in the rom-com genre has yet to make the kind of waves of Chu’s film.
In the years since it being a big hit, we heard about a sequel being in development from Constance Wu in 2022 and about a musical adaptation in 2024, but it’s thrilling to hear the biggest and most concrete update we’ve had in a long time.
As we wait to return to Crazy Rich Asians, Chu’s second Wicked movie, For Good is hitting theaters on November 21.
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