Looking for a juicy good summer read? I've been meaning to pick up Crazy Rich Asians, the red-hot bestselling debut novel by Kevin Kwan. I'm told that it's trashy good fun, and now it looks like it's going to be a movie: 'Hunger Games' Producer Nina Jacobson Acquires Kevin Kwan's 'Crazy Rich Asians.'Nina Jacobsen, producer behind the hit movie adaptation of The Hunger Games, has acquired the film rights for Crazy Rich Asians. Thanks to the book's international appeal -- think big-time Asian financing opportunities -- Crazy Rich Asians has been one of the industry's most hotly pursued titles.
The critically-acclaimed novel is about three super-rich, pedigreed Chinese families and the gossip, backbiting, and scheming that occurs when the heir to one of the most massive fortunes in Asia brings home his ABC girlfriend to the wedding of the season.
Color Force's Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson are producing the film. The company's Bryan Unkeless will oversee development.Fun fact: our good friend Lynn Chen supplied her voice for the audio book of Crazy Rich Asians.
"Crazy Rich Asians is that immersive page-turner I am constantly searching for but so rarely find," Jacobson said. "Kevin's writing took me into a world I'd never seen or imagined and got me so invested in the romance at the heart of it that I could not put the book down until I saw whether or not they made it. This novel represents an enormous opportunity for Color Force to tell a universal story to a global audience."
The book was repped by UTA, Alexandra Machinist at Janklow & Nesbit and Peter Nichols of Lichter, Grossman, Nichols, Adler & Feldman on behalf of Kwan.
Obviously, the movie version of Crazy Rich Asians will call for a large Asian ensemble cast. Fingers crossed. But let's be real: you have to imagine that at some point, somebody in charge will consider (or has already considered) flipping the American Born Chinese girlfriend character into a white guy. You know I'm right.
More here: 'Crazy Rich Asians': Color Force Nabs Film Rights to Best-Seller.