Hot off the heels of In The Heights, director Jon M. Chu has inked a deal with Warner Bros. to helm The Great Chinese Art Heist. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Crab Club will be the primary production company behind the project, with its founders Jimmy O. Yang, Jessica Gao, and Ken Cheng serving as producers and screenwriters. Chu’s Electric Company Co. and GQ Studios are also slated to produce the film.
This new film will adapt the 2018 GQ article by Alex Palmer of the same name. It tells the story of a long string of thefts and break-ins across European museums. Many of the stolen items come from the ransacking of Beijing’s Old Summer Palace in 1840. Questions about the ethics of museums and how history is preserved are woven in-between an investigation into who exactly was behind the heists.
Chu and Yang will reunite for the project, with the latter being in the director’s 2018 hit Crazy Rich Asians. Crab Club recently wrapped production on their debut feature film Easter Sunday, while Gao currently serves as showrunner on the upcoming Disney+ show She-Hulk. Cheng is currently developing the comedy series House of Chow for HBO and JuVee Productions. You can certainly expect to see the Crab Club members quite a bit in the coming years.
Another name that will continue to be everywhere in the future is Chu, who has a bevy of films currently in production. He recently revealed to Collider’s Steve Weintraub that both a Crazy Rich Asians sequel and his long-awaited adaptation of Wicked are currently in the works. He also signed on to bring the animated classic Lilo and Stitch into live-action in 2020.
The Great Chinese Art Heist currently does not have a release date. In the meantime, you could be seeing Yang again on your screens soon. He will return for Space Force’s second season, which recently began filming.