‘Crazy Rich Asians’ dominates the box office its opening weekend

“Crazy Rich Asians.”Warner Bros.

• “Crazy Rich Asians” won the weekend box office with an estimated $25.2 million, and has taken in $34 million since it opened on Wednesday.
• It’s the latest movie this year to prove that if Hollywood offers films with authentically diverse voices, audiences will come.

For the second-straight weekend, a Warner Bros. movie is atop the domestic box office mountain.

“Crazy Rich Asians” won the weekend box office with an estimated $25.2 million, and has earned $34 million since it opened on Wednesday.

The studio can point to two very different titles for its late summer surge. This weekend, “Rich Asians” proved there’s a market for a movie with an all-Asian cast (and a romantic comedy), while last weekend’s “The Meg” showed audiences will go see a giant shark chase Jason Statham.

Though the performance by “The Meg” was a surprise by most in the industry, that’s not the case with “Crazy Rich Asians.”

Based on the popular book series by author Kevin Kwan and starring some of the most popular Asians actors working today (Constance Wu, Awkwafina, Ken Jeong, Michelle Yeoh), along with an unknown on his way to stardom (Henry Golding), the movie was headed for some major coin.

And the movie earning a 92% Rotten Tomatoes score (a career best for its director Jon M. Chu) leading up to its opening all but confirmed it.

Like “Black Panther” earlier this year — which proved the hunger to see a superhero movie that showcased an authentic diverse voice was overwhelming (even though Disney opened the movie in the traditionally dead movie season of February) as it went on to break box office records and earn over $1.3 billion worldwide — “Crazy Rich Asians” continued that trend.

Marking the first time a major studio has released a movie with an all-Asian cast in 25 years, Chu’s movie was the perfect release in a time when inclusion in Hollywood is a cry that’s never been louder. And the fact that it was in the structure of a romantic comedy, a genre that studios have ran from for a decade, makes it even sweeter.

With the summer movie season wrapping up, “Crazy Rich Asians” is a strong end note. And with the season box office up over 11% from last year’s historically awful summer offering, this year proves that the summer movie season is still a cash cow — if the films are worth seeing for all audiences.