Director of ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ had to ignore his past failure to make career-defining movie

“Crazy Rich Asians”
director Jon M. Chu.
Alberto E.
Rodriguez/Getty

• Director Jon M. Chu was looking for a way to stop
  Hollywood whitewashing when the script for “Crazy Rich Asians”
  fell in his lap.
• But the movie also gave him a chance to prove to
  audiences that he can do more than make forgettable Hollywood
  titles like “G.I. Joe: Retaliation” and “Jem and the
  Holograms.” 
• He told Business Insider how the fear of failure drove
  him to making “Crazy Rich Asians,” his most acclaimed movie of
  his career to date.

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Jon M. Chu is the first to admit he’s taken a different path than
most to becoming a working director in Hollywood.

He was immediately thrust into the studio system when his short
film at USC, “When the Kids Are Away,” caught the eye of Steven
Spielberg. With that blessing, he quickly got jobs making
Hollywood titles like “Step Up 2: The Streets,” “Step Up 3D,”
“G.I. Joe: Retaliation,” and “Jem and the Holograms.”

But then in the last few years, Chu came across online protests
like #WhitewashedOut and #StarringJohnCho that put a spotlight on the lack
of Asian representation in US films, and realized he had to stop
trying to just survive in the industry, and get behind the cause.

“I realized that I was actually part of the problem, not by
contributing in some crazy way, but the fact that I hadn’t done
anything to help shift that,” Chu told Business Insider.

Unbeknownst to Chu, redemption was coming in the form of the
script adaptation of the book “Crazy Rich Asians.”

The national best-seller written by Kevin Kwan follows the funny
gossip and scheming that occurs when “ABC” (American-born
Chinese) Rachel Chu (star Constance Wu in the movie) spends the
summer in Singapore with her boyfriend Nicholas Young (Henry
Golding) as they attend a wedding. What Rachel quickly realizes
is that Nicholas’ family is one of the wealthiest in Asia, and
the wedding is the social event of the year.

Constance Wu and Henry Golding in “Crazy Rich
Asians.”
Warner
Bros.

Chu realized this was what he was looking for and in convincing
producers Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson he was right for the
project, made a presentation that was filled with personal
insights about his background and family in the hopes of
convincing them that he was the right person to direct.

Chu would learn after getting the job that being Chinese-American
wasn’t his only connection to the material. He and his family are
actually in the book.

“I had no idea my cousin is best friends with Kevin and he wrote
my family in the book,” Chu said. “I had no idea that I was
literally ‘the cousin who makes films’ in the book. When I met
Kevin I was like, ‘What the hell is happening here?’”

According to Chu, he was extremely confident in how to adapt the
book so whether you were Asian or not in the audience, you could
relate to the story. But it wasn’t just the need to tackle a
project that looked into his own cultural identity that drove
Chu, he also wanted to prove that he was more than a filmmaker
who made second-tier Hollywood films, many of which weren’t
hailed critically or at the box office.

“I had to see if I’m a real filmmaker,” Chu said. “I mean, I have
proven myself in films and franchises, but am I an artist? Can I
contribute something to a medium that I love so much?”

Chu said if he got anything out of making films that found the
ire of critics — 2015’s “Jem and the Holograms” was the low
point, with a 19% Rotten Tomatoes score and
Universal yanking it from over 2,000 screens
in just its second week in theaters — it’s to have a thick
skin and not get gun shy. And Chu often had to remind himself
that on the set of “Crazy Rich Asians.”

Chu’s “Jem and the Holograms” only earned $2.3 million
at the worldwide box office.
Universal

“The fear of doing [‘Jem’] again was definitely present,” he
said. “I always told myself after ‘Jem,’ I don’t want fear to
change my choices. Fear is a destruction of creativity. Any time
I had a fear about this movie I would go to that idea, don’t let
‘Jem’ determine your choices here. You were destined to be here
and do this movie.”

And though he felt he was on the right path during production —
with encouragement from the producers, and even a flashy
presentation at this year’s CinemaCon, where the movie’s studio,
Warner Bros., showcased to theater owners why the first
Hollywood-produced movie with an all-Asian cast in 25 years would
work — behind the scenes Chu wouldn’t get too excited.

“Our test screenings were hard to recruit,” he said. “It was 20-1
saying yes to see a free screening of ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ back in
November and December. It was so hard to convince Caucasian
people that this movie was for them. And Asian people, if they
didn’t know the book, they thought the title was offensive. So it
was always an uphill battle.”

Chu said it was the “just see the movie” marketing approach by
Warner Bros. that convinced him audiences would want to see his
rom-com with a family backbone. It wasn’t a blitz of internet and
TV ads. It was just finally showing audiences early screenings of
the movie that led to a word-of-mouth buzz that is powering the
movie (which opens Wednesday) to have a big opening weekend.

For Chu, it’s confirmation of the abilities that caught
Spielberg’s eye all those years ago (“Crazy Rich Asians” is the
first “fresh” score Chu has even
gotten on Rotten Tomatoes) and it’s led to bigger projects.
He’s going to direct the screen adaptation of the Lin-Manuel
Miranda Broadway musical “In the Heights” and he’s signed on for
one of the Thai cave rescue films. But
“Asians” is also a landmark moment in the movement to end
whitewashing in Hollywood.

“That’s the one party we haven’t been invited too,” Chu said,
referring to advances in Asian casting in TV and streaming. At
one time, “Crazy Rich Asians” could have been a Netflix release,
but Chu knew that wouldn’t have been right in proving Asians can
carry a movie.

“The big screen is the big show,” Chu continued, “and that means
[a studio] has to spend tens of millions of dollars on marketing
and tell the world that this is worth your time and energy, so we
felt that was the important message that needed to be told. I
fully believe this whole fervor that’s going on would not have
happened if we were on Netflix. For this movement, we needed a
parade.”