2019-09-04 The Hollywood Reporter

Behind the Headlines

The Report

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 16 SEPTEMBER 4, 2019

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Ages 18-29 Ages 30-44 Ages 45-54 Ages 55-64 Ages 65+

A

year after Crazy Rich

Asians opened No. 1 at

the box office (on its way

to a $238.5 million global gross)

and raised Asian representation

in Hollywood to new heights, its

sequels have been slow to launch.

Although director Jon M. Chu

had hoped to keep the creative

team intact, co-writer Adele

Lim no longer is involved with

the project, THR has learned.

At issue is pay parity: Co-writer

Peter Chiarelli, as an experienced

feature scribe who broke out with

2009’s The Proposal, was to be

paid a significantly higher fee

than Lim, a veteran TV writer

who never had penned a feature

until Chu hired her to work on the

screenplay. (Before Chu boarded

the project, producers Nina

Jacobson and Brad Simpson of

Color Force already had enlisted

Chiarelli to adapt Kevin Kwan’s

2013 best-selling novel.)

“Being evaluated that way

can’t help but make you feel that

is how they view my

contributions,” says

Lim, who believes

women and people of

color often are hired

as “soy sauce” —

whose contributions are seen as

no more than sprink ling cultur-

ally specific details onto a story.

She declined to provide spe-

cific figures, but sources say that

Warner Bros.’ starting offers

were $800,000 to $1 million

for Chiarelli and $110,000-plus

for Lim. Warners explained to

Lim’s reps that the quotes are

industry-standard established

ranges based on experience.

The talks escalated to studio

chairman Toby Emmerich, who

backed his business affairs

department’s stance.

Complicating matters was the

fact that Lim had already inked

a first-position contract with

Disney Animation for four years.

But the writer, who is penning

its Southeast Asian mythology-

influenced feature Raya and the

Last Dragon, says that Disney

would have been willing to do a

“carve out” on her availability.

After Lim walked away from a

deal last fall, Color Force spent

about five months considering

other writers of Asian descent

for the job. (Chu, who was prep-

ping to shoot Warners’ In the

Heights, was not involved.) They

came back to Lim in February

with an offer closer to parity

with Chiarelli, who had volun-

teered to split his fee with her,

but Lim passed. “Pete has been

nothing but incredibly gracious,

but what I make shouldn’t be

dependent on the generosity

of the white-guy writer,” she

says. “If I couldn’t get pay equity

after CRA, I can’t imagine what

it would be like for anyone else,

given that the standard for how

much you’re worth is having

established quotes from previous

movies, which women of color

Despite a Hostless Trend,

Americans Prefer Awards Show Emcees

From left: Gemma Chan, Henry Golding and

Awkwafina are set to return for the sequels.

Hit’s Asian American screenwriter departs amid a pay

disparity as Warner Bros. plans to shoot two films back-to-back

to accommodate its in-demand stars BY REBECCA SUN

What’s Holding Up

the Crazy Rich Asians

Sequels

Emmys will follow the Oscars’ lead for the Sept. 22 kudos, but significantly more

U.S. adults prefer a telecast to have a master of ceremonies, a new survey finds

THR/Morning Consult Poll

60%

50

40

30

20

10

I prefer awards shows that do not have a host I prefer awards shows that have a host

Lim

This year’s

Emmys won’t

have a host.

Does that make

you more or

less likely to

watch?

By a large margin, all U.S. adult age groups say

they generally prefer awards shows with a host

22% Less likely

8% More likely

56% No difference

60%

7% 5% 6% 5% 5%

59%

52%

49%

45%

The 2018

Emmys, hosted

by Colin

Jost (left) and

Michael Che,

drew 10.2 mil-

lion viewers

to NBC, down

10 percent

from 2017.

would never have been [hired

for]. There’s no realistic way to

achieve true equity that way.”

For now, work on the sequels is

slowly moving forward. Chiarelli,

writing with Chu, delivered the

first draft of a 10-page treatment

to the studio in late July, and

they’re still exploring how much

of the source material — Kwan’s

trilogy includes 2015’s China Rich

Girlfriend and 2017’s Rich People

Problems — to adapt. The hope is

to reunite all the breakouts from

the first film, many of whom have

become hotly in demand, includ-

ing Henry Golding, Awkwafina,

Gemma Chan, Constance Wu and

Michelle Yeoh. The actors are

currently under option, and

though they are rapidly booking

other projects and even fran-

chises, scheduling isn’t expected

to impact sequel plans, which

at this rate would shoot back-

to-back and no sooner than the

end of 2020.

“There’s too much responsi-

bility and too much precedent

from the first movie that the last

thing I want to do is just hit a

date and release the movie,” Chu

tells THR. “There’s still too much

work to do. Our focus isn’t on

the timeline, it’s on getting the

story right.”

Source: THR/Morning Consult poll conducted Aug. 8-9 among a nationally representative sample of 2,200 adults.; percentages don’t add up to 100