Director Jon M. Chu is ready to dive back into the decadent world of Crazy Rich Asians and has shared a promising update on the long-awaited HBO Max series continuation, per deadline.com.
“It’s a real thing,” Chu told Esquire. “We have scripts, and we’re waiting to be officially ready to go.”
The series, which follows the successful 2018 feature adaptation of Kevin Kwan’s book, is moving forward despite the challenges of adapting the source material after the film made key changes to the main characters. Chu explained that the differences between the movie’s ending and the original book series present a hurdle.
“It’s hard to do the continuation of the books, because our characters changed so much in the first movie,” Chu noted. “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.”
While no actors have officially been confirmed, Chu is optimistic that the film’s stars, including Henry Golding and Constance Wu, will return when production begins. “Our cast will be there,” he assured. As of February, the original cast was reportedly in unofficial discussions about reprising their roles.
The Warner Bros. TV series is not intended to replace the long-anticipated sequel film but will be based on the same book series. It previously opened a development room led by executive producer and showrunner Adele Lim, who co-wrote the original screenplay. Chu and Kwan also serve as executive producers on the show.
Crazy Rich Asians was nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and was a global box office smash, grossing more than $239 million. The movie follows NYU professor Rachel Chu (Wu) as she travels with her boyfriend Nick Young (Golding) to Singapore and discovers his family’s extraordinary wealth.
•Featured image: Constance Wu and Henry Golding in ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ (2018)/Sanja Bucko/Warner Bros./Courtesy Everett Collection
