“The Joy Luck Club” Sequel On the Way

Films

“The Joy Luck Club” Sequel On the Way

“The Joy Luck Club” is getting a sequel. The groundbreaking 1993 portrait of four aging Chinese women in San Francisco and their Chinese-American daughters will get a second chapter thanks to novelist Amy Tan and screenwriter Ron Bass. Variety reports that “Joy Luck Club 2” is set up at Hyde Park Entertainment Group. A director for the project, which counts Tan among its producers, has not been announced.

The next installment of “Joy Luck Club” will see “the mothers become grandmothers and the daughters become mothers in their own right, introducing a new generation exploring their own relationships with culture, heritage, love, womanhood, and identity,” per the source. The original leading cast, which included Lisa Lu, Kiều Chinh, and Rosalind Chao, is in talks to reprise their roles.

Based on Tan’s 1989 novel of the same name, “The Joy Luck Club” was critically acclaimed and took in $28 million in North America, but its real legacy was centering a story around Asian women and Asian American women. In a 2018 New York Times feature, the drama’s cast discussed the type of roles they were offered before “The Joy Luck Club.” “I was frustrated when I was in Hollywood because there was no script that really describes the Chinese as they are,” said Lu. Chao added,  “Asian-American women were objectified.” She explained, “Pretty was really all that they cared about.” While Ming-Na Wen described “The Joy Luck Club” as her “green card to Hollywood,” it wasn’t until 2018 that another major Hollywood film led by an Asian and Asian-American cast was released: “Crazy Rich Asians.” The Constance Wu-starrer, which also features Lu, took in over $238 million worldwide.

“Now more than ever it is important to share authentic stories about the Asian American experience, and we believe this film will speak to wide audiences with its narrative rooted in humanity and connection,” said Hyde Park Entertainment Group’s Ashok Amritraj.