Jon M. Chu

Director

• Born: November 2, 1979
• Place of Birth: Palo Alto, California

Contribution: Jon M. Chu is a film director and screenwriter best known for the films Step Up 2: The Streets (2008), Step Up 3D (2010), G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013), Crazy Rich Asians (2018), and In the Heights (2021).

Background

Jonathan Murray Chu was born on November 2, 1979, in Palo Alto, California. His father, Lawrence Chu, is a well-known chef and owner of the restaurant Chef Chu’s in Los Altos.

From kindergarten through high school, Chu attended Pinewood School in Los Altos. In the fifth grade, he began making films during family vacations, but rather than shooting typical tourism videos, Chu would make science-fiction thrillers and murder mysteries with his parents and four siblings as cast members. As a child, Chu was also interested in music, and he studied piano, drums, saxophone, and violin.

Chu attended the University of Southern California (USC) School of Cinematic Arts in Los Angeles, graduating in 2003. As a sophomore, Chu made the short film Silent Beats, which is set to a tap-dance rhythm and addresses the issue of racial profiling. The film won numerous awards, including the Princess Grace Award, which is presented to emerging talent in theater, dance, and film, and the Anti-Defamation League’s Dore Schary Award. Based on his work on the film, Chu was also awarded the USC Cinematic Arts Jack Nicholson Scholarship for directing.

As his student thesis film, Chu wrote and directed When the Kids Are Away, a musical short depicting the secret lives of mothers and featuring dance choreography by Ramon Del Barrio. Chu incorporated dozens of dancers, a fifty-piece orchestra, and twenty student singers into the film.

Career

When the Kids Are Away scored Chu a contract with the William Morris Agency, an entertainment talent agency, which attached him to several high-profile film projects. He was hired by Sony Pictures to direct their feature film Bye Bye Birdie, but the project was cancelled due to budgetary concerns. Chu also sold his original script for the full-length musical Moxie to DreamWorks Studios, but that film never got past the development stage.

Chu eventually made his feature-film directorial debut with 2008’s Step Up 2: The Streets, which is the sequel to Step Up (2006) and is about a pair of dance students who fall in love. Although not critically acclaimed, the film was popular among moviegoers and grossed more than $150 million worldwide.

Based on the success of Step Up 2, Chu was chosen as director for the third installment of the series, Step Up 3D. This was the first of the trilogy shot in this format and told the story of romance within rival dance crews. The film grossed more than the previous Step Up films, and critical reviews of the film were generally positive and in particular praised the dance sequences and effective use of 3-D technology. He later served as executive producer for the fourth installment, Step Up: All In (2014).

In 2010, Chu wrote, produced, and directed the web television series The LXD: The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers, which was shown on Hulu, an online video streaming website. The series follows two rival dance crews with superpowers that are based on their dance abilities. Chu stated he was inspired by the music videos of singer Michael Jackson and by the dancers he met while filming the Step Up films.

LXD became the most-viewed original web series on Hulu and received several awards. It won the 2010 Media Vanguard Award for best original web series, the 2011 Digital Luminary Award in the original web content category, and Chu won the Pioneer Prize at the 2011 International Digital Emmy Awards. Chu continued working in television thereafter, though primarily as an executive producer for arts- or dance-themed shows.

In 2010, Chu began filming the documentary Justin Bieber: Never Say Never, which documents Bieber’s career. The film, released in early 2011, features a mix of performances by Bieber and interviews with his family, friends, and fans. Chu explained that he wanted to portray the performer as a self-made icon of the digital age. The film received mixed reviews and grossed over $90 million worldwide. Chu collaborated again with Bieber in Believe 3D, which was shot independently and was released in theaters in 2013.

Also in 2013, Chu directed the action film G.I. Joe: Retaliation, the sequel to G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009). Reviewers deemed Chu’s Retaliation an improvement over the negatively reviewed but commercially successful Cobra.

Chu's Jem and the Holograms (2015) proved a poorly received big-screen adaptation of a 1980s animated series. Despite that flop, Chu was brought in to direct Now You See Me 2 (2016), a critically panned but commercially successful follow-up to a 2013 heist comedy.

His next project was a 2018 film adaptation of Kevin Kwan's romantic comedy novel Crazy Rich Asians. Although it grossed only $238.5 million worldwide, the film more than made back its $30 million production budget and demonstrated that audiences were receptive to its casting: the first all-Asian or Asian-descended cast in a major-studio production in a quarter-century. Crazy Rich Asians also earned critical notice, receiving a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for best cast and a Golden Globe Award nomination for best picture. Chu was expected to helm the film adaptations of the novel's two sequels as well. The success of the film also led to his signing a multimillion-dollar, four-year contract with 20th Century Fox Television in 2019.

Chu subsequently went on to direct In the Heights (2021), a film adaptation of playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda's stage musical of the same name. Sticking with the Broadway theme, Chu then segued into directing Wicked (2024), a film adaptation of the popular stage musical based on characters from author L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Impact

Chu’s movies have helped redefine the dance film genre and have grossed hundreds of millions of dollars worldwide. He has helped draw attention to the world of competitive dancing, and he created one of the most popular web series in the history of the medium. Chu's blockbuster Crazy Rich Asians broke ground in terms of Asian and Asian American film representation and inspired discussions around whitewashing and casting decisions.

Personal Life

Chu is part of a dance crew called Adam/Chu Dance Crew, otherwise known as ACDC, which he founded with actor and dancer Adam G. Sevani. He married Kristin Hodge, and the couple have two children, Willow Chu (b. 2017) and Jonathan Heights Chu (b. 2019).

Bibliography

Anti-Defamation League. ADL Honors Student Film Portraying Emotional Side of Racial Profiling. New York: ADL, 26 Dec. 2001. Print.

Close, Jordan. “Filmmaker ‘Born from a Boombox:’ An Interview with Jon M. Chu.” Asia Pacific Arts. University of Southern California, 15 Sept. 2010. Web. 15 July 2013.

Ehrlich, David. “Director’s Cut: Jon M. Chu on G.I. Joe: Retaliation and Working with The Rock’s Head Sweat.” Film.com. MTV Networks, 28 Mar. 2013. Web. 15 July 2013.

Gilchrist, Todd. “Jon Chu on G.I. Joe 2: ‘Do Not Let My Inexperience Be the Thing that Holds This Movie Back.” Boxoffice. Boxoffice Media, LLC, 14 Apr. 2011. Web. 15 Jul. 2013.

Halbfinger, David M. “Director’s Reward: A Second First Chance.” New York Times. New York Times Company, 18 Feb. 2008. Web. 15 July 2013.

"Jon M. Chu." IMDb, 2024, www.imdb.com/name/nm0160840. Accessed 24 Sept. 2024.

“Jon M. Chu and Hieu Ho Launch DS2DIO: New YouTube Channel Will Focus on Dance Lifestyle.” USC Cinematic Arts. University of Southern California, 4 June 2012. Web. 1 August 2013.