Jon M. Chu is a busy man. As well as having the big screen adaptation of smash hit musical Wicked (set to star Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo) to wrangle, and the Play-Doh movie he’s working on with The Big Sick writer Emily V. Gordon that was announced last week to figure out, he’s also got the sequel to his extremely successful 2018 romcom Crazy Rich Asians on the cards – a film that has a newly confirmed writer in the form of Chinese-Australian up-and-comer Amy Wang.
After Crazy Rich Asians took a cool $238.5 million at the global box office on a $30 million budget, it didn’t take long for Warner Bros. to announce plans for two more movies. The first film was an adaptation of Kevin Kwan’s same-named satirical novel, which itself was the first part in a trilogy – China Rich Girlfriend and Rich People Problems being the second and third instalments – and so the framework was very much in place for Kwan’s exploration of class, culture, and modern romance in the presence of mega wealth to continue on the big screen.
As reported in Deadline, Wang – who has served as story editor on Netflix’s Brothers Sun, and is currently writing and directing a horror feature for Paramount Players/QC Entertainment – has now been announced as the sequel’s sole scribe, after the first film’s writers, Peter Chiarelli and Adele Lim, exited the project due to a pay disparity dispute.
Crazy Rich Asians ended with the engagement of New Yorker Rachel Chu (Constance Wu) and crazy rich Young heir Nick (Henry Golding), the couple having finally gotten the blessing of Nick’s ‘old money’ family after the latter’s continued efforts to thwart the pair’s romance. A mid-credits sting also hinted at a spark being (re)ignited between Gemma Chan’s Astrid and a nameless character played by Harry Shum Jr. While the character’s name isn’t listed in the credits, fans of Kwan’s novels would be quick to point out that Shum Jr. is almost certainly Charlie Wu, Astrid’s ex-lover, whose relationship with her is as central to the books – if not more so – than Nick and Rachel’s. Could they be the focus for the sequel? It will be a while before we find out...