Page 75 - Entrepreneur-November 2018

MOST DARING
ENTREPRENEURS

Kevin Kwan
Author/ Crazy Rich Asians
Bold move/ Taking a crazy, rich,
culturally significant gamble
n October 2016, Kevin Kwan
was on the most consequen-
tial conference call of his life.
He’s the author of Crazy Rich
Asians, the best-selling novel
series, and two moviemaking
giants were bidding to take his
vision to the screen. A choice
had to be made: Sell to Netflix
I or Warner Bros.? “I’d never
been on a conference call with
that many people ever,” says Kwan.
There were lawyers. Agents.
Film producers. And the clock
was ticking. Warner Bros. had
given them 15 minutes to make
up their minds.
If Kwan wanted instant riches,
the choice was clear: Netflix. It
offered up-front seven-figure-
minimum payouts for the movie’s
stakeholders, plus a guaranteed
trilogy. But Kwan and the film’s
director, Jon M. Chu, had larger
ambitions. Warner Bros. outbid
the other Hollywood studios—and
while it wasn’t offering Netflix’s
mountain of cash, it would place
the movie in theaters. That mat-
tered to Kwan and Chu, because
they wanted to create more than
just a movie. They wanted a cul-
tural statement.
Crazy Rich Asians would be the
first Hollywood studio rom-com to
feature Asian leads, and the first
studio movie in 25 years to have an
all-Asian cast. “We needed to be
able to prove to the industry that a
movie like this could work,” Kwan
says. Hollywood studios release
their box office numbers—so if it
was a hit, everyone would know.
(Of course, if it was a flop, everyone
would know that, too.) Netflix never
shares viewership numbers, so its
results would be secret.
“Trust me, it was a damn
hard decision,” Kwan says. But
ultimately, they rolled the dice with
Warner Bros. Two years later, on
the opening weekend of Crazy Rich Asians’ August 2018 theatrical release, success,” he says. “I think that some people assume that I woke
he learned he’d made the right choice. “They kept having to revise the box up one day and just wrote a book that became a surprise best-seller.
office estimates, because the number kept getting bigger and bigger,” he But I had more than 15 years of experience in the publishing
says. “That’s when I truly knew we had a hit.” and media biz, and so many book ideas I pitched never went anywhere.
These are the kinds of decisions that Kwan believes have made his I took every lesson and used every contact to create the Crazy
career. “I’ve always played a long game,” he says. He even did it when Rich Asians trilogy and to give it a fighting chance in the marketplace.”
selling his book to a publisher. Multiple houses bid on it—and the one The first book came out in 2013, which means five years’
he chose, Doubleday, wasn’t the top bidder. He picked it because he worth of risk-taking has now been vindicated. But he hasn’t paused P H O T O G R A P H B Y J A M I TA R R I S
trusted the vision of a young editor there. to celebrate—he’s still playing the long game. “I’m traveling
“I feel strongly that there really are no shortcuts, and you have nonstop to promote the movie,” he says. “We’ve got a whole world
to put in the hours—the years, actually—to make something a to conquer!”

54 / ENTREPRENEUR.COM / November 2018