opulence

Crazy Rich Asians Had an Astonishing Second Week at the Box Office

Pop your finest bottle of Champagne.
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By Sanja Bucko/Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures.

Is there a more charmed movie in theaters right now than Crazy Rich Asians? The groundbreaking rom-com, directed by Jon M. Chu, has introduced moviegoers to marquee-worthy newbies like Henry Golding (a charismatic, square-jawed blessing)—and earned a robust $26 million in its opening weekend. Now, the rom-com is proving just how badly audiences have been craving films of its ilk by picking up another $25 million in its second weekend at the box office. That’s only a 6 percent drop in sales from the film’s first weekend to the second—which is fairly unprecedented; most releases, as The New York Times notes, drop somewhere between 30 and 60 percent in that timeframe.

“Wow... Just wow,” Golding tweeted in response to the news. “Thankyou to all who keep turning up and telling their friends they have to go watch our little movie. This is so strong ❤️.”

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Crazy Rich Asians is also the top-grossing domestic comedy of the year so far. Its worldwide gross is currently about $84 million. It beat out the stealthily successful Game Night, which starred Rachel McAdams and Jason Bateman. And Crazy Rich Asians has plenty of room to grow, too: the blockbuster has only picked up about $7.1 million overseas so far, prior to opening wide around the world.

The film does not yet have a set release date in China, the globe’s second-biggest moviegoing market. It’s facing a few obstacles there, including China’s limiting foreign-film quota—but the film’s producers remain hopeful.

“We’re all praying to the China gods right now,” producer John Penotti previously told The Hollywood Reporter. “From my colleagues in Beijing, it looks like we’re in strong consideration.”

Regardless, Crazy Rich Asians has performed well enough that Warner Bros. is moving forward with a sequel. The studio plans to bring back Chu to direct, the first film’s producers to produce, and the same actors to act—after they’ve negotiated crazy-rich sequel deals, of course. The second movie will be an adaptation of Kevin Kwan’s Crazy Rich Asians follow-up novel, China Rich Girlfriend, which revolves around the same opulent crew as they branch out from Singapore and into the even crazier, old-moneyed wonderland of mainland China.

13 Old Hollywood Hot Spots That Defined an Era

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From left, by J. R. Eyerman, by Ralph Crane, both from The LIFE Images Collection; By William Gottlieb/Redferns.
The Mocambo
The pivotal West Hollywood nightclub, which regularly hosted artists like Dorothy Dandridge and Eartha Kitt, served as the debut spot for two singular performers: Frank Sinatra, who was making his Los Angeles debut as a solo act, and Ella Fitzgerald, who only got a slot thanks to a bit of lobbying from Marilyn Monroe. “She personally called the owner of the Mocambo and told him she wanted me booked immediately, and if he would do it, she would take a front table every night,” Fitzgerald once said. “The owner said yes, and Marilyn was there, front table, every night. The press went overboard. After that, I never had to play a small jazz club again.”