Fresh Off The Boat star Constance Wu will take on the lead role in Crazy Rich Asians.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Wu has begun negotiations with Warner Bros, the studio producing the romantic comedy.
Crazy Rich Asians is based on Kevin Kwan’s New York Times best-selling novel of the same name and will feature an all-Asian cast. Directed by Jon M Chu, the film centres on the lives of wealthy Chinese families living in Singapore. The story follows Rachel Chu (Wu), an American-born Chinese economics professor who travels to Singapore for her boyfriend’s best friend’s wedding. It quickly becomes apparent that her boyfriend Nick and his family are incredibly wealthy. Rachel soon realises that Nick may just be the most desirable bachelor in Asia and that every other single woman in his social class is jealous of her and wants to bring her down.
Last month, director Chu took to social media to cast Asians in his film.
Color Force’s Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson, as well as Ivanhoe president John Penotti, are producing. The screenplay is written by Peter Chiarelli (The Proposal) and Adele Lim (TV series Lethal Weapon). Kevin Kwan has also been taken on as executive producer alongside Ivanhoe chairman Robert Friedland. Courtenay Valenti and Jon Gonda will oversee the project for Warner Bros.
Constance Wu rose to fame in ABC’s Fresh Off The Boat, playing Jessica Huang. However, she has attracted a great deal of attention for being vocal about issues concerning the global Asian community. Most famously, she criticised director Zhang Yimou for casting Matt Damon in The Great Wall, saying “our heroes don’t look like Matt Damon. They look like Malala. Gandhi. Mandela”. As a result, we crowned her Resonate Asian of the Year 2016: “Wu’s approach of using her celebrity status to vocalise the community’s concerns about representation is not only commendable, but is also invaluable to a global community that is otherwise considered ‘silent’.”
Most recently, Wu took to Twitter to denounce President Donald Trump’s travel ban and also slammed Casey Affleck’s Oscar nomination.
