By Jen Yamato / Los Angeles Times
Two weeks ago, before his watershed romantic comedy “Crazy Rich Asians” pushed beyond expectations to a $34 million, five-day opening, director Jon M. Chu was already feeling the electricity of what would become a historic moment in Hollywood.
“I want to say 50 theaters have been bought out already. People email me, ‘What can we do?’ Anyone can support in any way … both Asian and not!” he said then, during an interview for a special LA Times series on the Warner Bros. release, hoping for a groundswell of support from within and outside of the Asian-American community.
Many more theaters were subsequently bought out across the country, by celebrities and non-celebs alike. Tech and digital influencers boosted the hashtag #GoldOpen and a cascade of social media support — from Ava DuVernay, Dwayne Johnson, Chris Pratt, Justin Bieber, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Lena Waithe, Olivia Munn and many others — poured in throughout opening weekend.
Now the little film with a modest $30 million budget, in a genre many thought was dead (the glossy rom-com), stands to send a message to the entire industry: Diversity sells.
“There were no guarantees when we started this,” Chu said earlier this month, feeling the love building. “And to see it pop, even beyond our own community, has been really incredible.”
According to a USC Annenberg study of the top 100 films of 2017, only 4.8 percent featured a character of Asian descent with a speaking role. But the “Crazy Rich Asians” effect is real, according to industry creators. At a post-screening Q&A last week hosted by the LA chapter of the Asian American Journalists Association, co-screenwriter Adele Lim relayed a recent meeting she’d had in which an exec noted they were waiting to see how “Crazy Rich Asians” performed before greenlighting similarly diverse projects.
On Twitter, “Sleepy Hollow” executive producer Albert Kim revealed that the wheels of progress are already in motion: “In the last week, two network pilots were sold that feature all-Asian casts. I also know of three cable projects, all in active development, that mostly feature Asian and Asian-American characters. It’s going to happen, the momentum is there.”
Other distributors with rare Asian-American-led projects synced up around the “Crazy Rich Asians” release for a frame atypically rich in Asian-American leads.
Sony’s Screen Gems will open director Aneesh Chaganty’s Sundance prize-winning thriller “Searching,” starring John Cho as a Silicon Valley father frantically searching for his missing daughter, in limited release Friday ahead of a nationwide release for Labor Day weekend.
Meanwhile, streaming giant Netflix continued its “Summer of Love” over the weekend by releasing YA rom-com adaptation “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before,” centered on an Asian-American teen heroine played by actress Lana Condor, and instantly set social media buzzing.
For Chu, a Palo Alto-born USC film school graduate who had a successful career directing studio franchise films “G.I. Joe: Retaliation,” “Now You See Me” and “Now You See Me 2,” taking the helm of a culturally specific story was an intensely personal choice.
It’s one he intends to continue by directing the big-screen adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Tony Award-winning Broadway musical “In the Heights” next year. Set in the predominantly Hispanic-American neighborhood of New York’s Washington Heights, the play by Miranda and Pulitzer-winning playwright Quiara Alegria Hudes struck familiar and vital chords to Chu.
“I’m growing up, and when you grow up your tastes change,” he said. “What you feel is important changes; your priorities change. I remember choosing ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ and ‘In the Heights’ around the same time — knowing they had similar ideas to them. The immigrant story was under attack, and I wanted to tell an immigrant story that wasn’t political, wasn’t heavy, but was joyful and about a community.”
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
