Crazy Rich Asians continues to dominate the U.S. box office. Variety reports Jon M. Chu's rom-com earned another $25 million in the box office this weekend. The film, the first major Hollywood release with an all Asian-American cast in leading roles for since 1993's Joy Luck Club, has earned a total of $78.8 million in the box office so far.
Crazy Rich Asians follows Fresh Off The Boat's Constance Wu as her character, Rachel, goes with her boyfriend to his best friend's wedding in Singapore and quickly finds out her beau's family is extremely wealthy. It's based on Kevin Kwan's book of the same name. Ahead of its release, the cast shared why the film is so important for them and the Asian-American community. Chu also revealed that he turned down a major Netflix deal which reportedly promised "complete artistic freedom, a greenlighted trilogy, and huge, seven figure-minimum paydays for each stakeholders, upfront." He decided to take another route so Asian Americans could be seen on the big screen once more.
On the other hand, Melissa McCarthy’s black comedy The Happytime Murders, which opened this weekend, didn't fare as well with only $10 million. This is the weakest opening for a McCarthy film since 2010, according to Box Office Mojo. This is also a failure considering the film had a $40 million production budget. Crazy Rich Asians also came out ahead of Jason Statham's The Meg, Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible — Fallout, Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman, and Disney's Christopher Robin.
