--- title: '''Crazy Rich Asians'' Screenwriter Quits the Sequel Because She Was Reportedly Offered 8 Times Less Than Her Male Co-Writer' description: '"Crazy Rich Asians" screenwriter Adele Lim quit work on the hit movie''s sequels because of pay gap with her white male colleague.' authors: - name: Brad Tuttle role: Senior Editor url: https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/ bio: Brad Tuttle is a former senior editor at Money with over 10 years’ experience covering a vast number of personal finance topics, including careers, cars, travel, budgeting, investing, insurance, credit cards, consumer psychology, real estate, banking, and shopping and deals. education: Columbia University School of Journalism, MS at_money_since: 2014 articles: 366 covers: - Lifestyle - Banking - Business - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Economy and Politics - Education - Health and Wellness - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Pets - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology social: - https://twitter.com/bradrtuttle - https://linkedin.com/in/brad-tuttle-834b225 former_staff: true published: '2019-09-05T16:29:43.000Z' modified: '2019-09-05T20:59:57.000Z' section: Lifestyle tags: - movies - pay gap word_count: 404 canonical: https://money.com/crazy-rich-asians-sequels-screenwriter-pay-gap/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![190905-Adele-Lim](https://img.money.com/2019/09/gettyimages-1012995672.jpg) The amazing success of *Crazy Rich Asians* was supposed to have proved it was good business to have better representation of non-white people — and Asians, in particular — in the movies. But now, the two sequels planned for *Crazy Rich Asians* have one less Asian person closely associated with them: Adele Lim, the [Malaysian-born screenwriter](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1004604/) of the original film, quit working on the sequels after finding out that her white male co-writer was making significantly more money than her, according to [*The Hollywood Reporter*](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/crazy-rich-asians-screenwriter-adele-lim-exits-sequel-pay-disparity-dispute-1236431). Everyone was aware that when *Crazy Rich Asians* was released in 2018, it was the first big-budget Hollywood movie in decades featuring a predominantly Asian cast that wasn't "about [martial arts, nerds, or a period piece](https://www.nyfa.edu/student-resources/asian-representation-crazy-rich-asians/) with subtitles." A landmark [USC film study](https://annenberg.usc.edu/news/faculty-research/hollywood-equality-all-talk-little-action) published in 2016 showed that Asian representation in movies has been particularly abysmal, with a tiny number of roles on screen for Asian people and few jobs behind the camera working on major Hollywood productions. Clearly, the glitzy romantic comedy resonated with filmgoers: *Crazy Rich Asians* opened as the No.1 movie at the box office in August 2018, proving the "Power of Diversity" as a [*New York Times* headline](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/19/movies/crazy-rich-asians-box-office-no-1.html) stated. It went on to gross an [impressive $174 million at the box office](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=intl&id=crazyrichasians.htm) in the U.S., plus another $64 million worldwide. Almost immediately after the release of the movie, Warner Bros. gave the green light to a [*Crazy Rich Asians* sequel](https://screenrant.com/crazy-rich-asians-sequels-filming-schedule/), and now there are plans for two sequels to be filmed simultaneously in 2020. The sequels are still moving forward, but without one of their main screenwriters. Lim says that she and other people of color are often viewed by movie studios as "soy sauce." That is, they are "hired to sprinkle culturally specific details on a screenplay, rather than credited with the substantive work of crafting the story," as *The Hollywood Reporter* explained. And when contributors are viewed this way, movie studios are emboldened to pay them much less more established pros. Sources told *The Hollywood Reporter* that they believe Lim was initially offered around $110,000, compared to $800,000 to $1 million for the other *Crazy Rich Asians* screenwriter, [Pete Chiarelli](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1095804/), who wrote the 2009 rom-com *The Proposal*, starring Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds. Lim isn't blaming the situation on Chiarelli, who "has been nothing but incredibly gracious," she said. "But what I make shouldn't be dependent on the generosity of the white-guy writer." ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/crazy-rich-asians-sequels-screenwriter-pay-gap/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Lifestyle", "item": "https://money.com/lifestyle/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Movies", "item": "https://money.com/movies/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "'Crazy Rich Asians' Screenwriter Quits the Sequel Because She Was Reportedly Offered 8 Times Less Than Her Male Co-Writer" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/crazy-rich-asians-sequels-screenwriter-pay-gap/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/crazy-rich-asians-sequels-screenwriter-pay-gap/", "name": "'Crazy Rich Asians' Screenwriter Quits the Sequel Because She Was Reportedly Offered 8 Times Less Than Her Male Co-Writer", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2019-09-05T16:29:43.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/crazy-rich-asians-sequels-screenwriter-pay-gap/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/crazy-rich-asians-sequels-screenwriter-pay-gap/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2019-09-05T20:59:57.000Z" }, { "@type": "Article", "headline": "'Crazy Rich Asians' Screenwriter Quits the Sequel Because She Was Reportedly Offered 8 Times Less Than Her Male Co-Writer", "articleSection": "Lifestyle", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2019/09/gettyimages-1012995672.jpg", "width": 2880, "height": 1920, "caption": "190905-Adele-Lim" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Brad Tuttle", "url": "https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/#author", "description": "Brad Tuttle is a former senior editor at Money with over 10 years’ experience covering a vast number of personal finance topics, including careers, cars, travel, budgeting, investing, insurance, credit cards, consumer psychology, real estate, banking, and shopping and deals.\r\n\r\n", "image": "https://img.money.com/2014/01/Brad-Tuttle.png?w=226&h=247&crop=1", "alumniOf": "Columbia University School of Journalism, MS", "sameAs": [ "https://twitter.com/bradrtuttle", "https://linkedin.com/in/brad-tuttle-834b225" ] } ], "publisher": "https://money.com/#organization", "datePublished": "2019-09-05T16:29:43.000Z", "description": "\"Crazy Rich Asians\" screenwriter Adele Lim quit work on the hit movie's sequels because of pay gap with her white male colleague.", "abstract": "\"Crazy Rich Asians\" screenwriter Adele Lim quit work on the hit movie's sequels because of pay gap with her white male colleague.", "@id": "https://money.com/crazy-rich-asians-sequels-screenwriter-pay-gap/", "inLanguage": "en-US", "dateModified": "2019-09-05T20:59:57.000Z", "wordCount": 404, "keywords": [ "movies", "pay gap" ], "about": [ { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Lifestyle", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifestyle" ] }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Film", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film" ] } ] } ] } ```