Crazy Rich Asians Director Jon M. Chu Wouldn't Have Made Step Up 2 If It Weren't for His Mom

Jon M. Chu always envisioned himself as a serious filmmaker. So, when he got the offer to potentially direct the sequel to the 2006 dance romance Step Up, he was hesitant to take it. 

The director, 44, recalls the early days of his career in his newly-released memoir Viewfinder, in which he writes about making his feature directorial debut in 2008 with Step Up 2: The Streets, stating that his mother encouraged him to pursue the project.

Prior to getting the offer, Chu, who had gotten attention from Hollywood from the release of two popular short films, was hired by Sony Pictures to direct a remake of Bye Bye Birdie but the movie never materialized due to an array of issues. 

He writes that it was 2007 and multiple projects of his were getting canceled: "These table scraps were no longer enough to keep me from starving."

Chu says he hired two new managers, Allen Fischer and Brian Bobbins, who pitched him the dance movie sequel. 

"The original movie had been a surprise hit. It had made enough money for Summit Entertainment and Disney that they’d decided to make a sequel," he writes. "But since it had also turned its leading man, Channing Tatum, into a big star with a significantly higher fee, the budget math worked only if the sequel was a direct-to-DVD release."

The director goes on to write that several people in his life dissuaded him from pursuing the project, including his aforementioned managers. He also considered advice he had received from his idol and peer Steven Spielberg, cautioning him to be "extraordinarily careful" about picking his first project.

With his mind set on rejecting the offer, he reached out to his parents and got a wake-up call from his mother, who asked him, "When did you become a snob?"

She continued to say that if he is a "storyteller," he should be able to apply his skills to a variety of different projects — "even a direct-to-DVD movie."

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From there, Chu pitched his version of the movie to famed producers Adam Shankman and Jennifer Gibgot, and convinced them to ask Disney for a theatrical release, which would increase their budget. 

Shortly after the director brought his ideas to the studio’s president of production, he got the approval and set off to the work on the movie.

Looking back, Chu writes that the world premiere of the flick "was definitely not how I expected my first opening night to unfold."

"It didn’t mark the arrival of a Hollywood wunderkind. The trades weren’t going to say that I reinvented the movie musical. Steven Spielberg wasn’t going to give me a hug at the afterparty. But none of that mattered to me now," he writes. 

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Step Up 2 follows a rebellious street dancer who enrolls at prestigious art school and teams up with a popular dancer to form an underground dance contest. The movie was considered a box office success, having grossed $150.8 million on a $17.5 million budget.

While working on the movie, Chu met actor-dancer Harry Shum, Jr., and later cast him in his 2018 romantic-comedy Crazy Rich Asians.

Chu returned to direct another sequel for the Step Up franchise in 2010. His next movie, Wicked: Part One, opens Nov. 22.

Viewfinder by Jon M. Chu is available for purchase now, wherever books are sold.