Box office Crazy Rich Asians grossed $174.5 million in the United States and Canada, and $64 million internationally for a worldwide gross of $239 million, against a production budget of $30 million.
Deadline Hollywood calculated the net profit of the film to be $120.8 million, when factoring together all expenses and revenues. Three weeks before its North American release,
Crazy Rich Asians was projected to gross $18–20 million during its five-day opening weekend. By the week of its release, estimates had reached $26–30 million, with
Fandango reporting pre-sale tickets were outpacing
Girls Trip (which debuted to $31.2 million in July 2017). The film held special advance screenings on August 8, 2018, and made an estimated $450,000–500,000, selling out most of its 354 theaters. It then took in $5 million on its first day and $3.8 million on its second. It went on to gross $26.5 million in its opening weekend, for a five-day total of $35.2 million, finishing
first at the box office. 38% of its audience was of Asian descent, which was the highest Asian makeup for a film in U.S. in the previous three years (besting
The Foreigners 18.4% in 2017). In its second weekend the film made $24.8 million, a
box office drop of just 6%, which
Deadline Hollywood called "unbelievable." The film continued to play well in its third weekend, making $22 million (a drop of just 11% from the previous week) and remaining in first. The film was finally dethroned in its fourth weekend, finishing third behind newcomers
The Nun and
Peppermint with $13.1 million. In Singapore, where the film takes place,
Crazy Rich Asians grossed over $5 million. The first-week ticket sales for the film, $2.5 million, were considered unusually high. Large numbers of organizations and individuals buying out theaters to host screenings, as well as general interest in seeing how Hollywood portrayed the
city-state, were noted as major contributors to the film's high Singaporean box office totals. On a panel about the future of film for
The New York Times on June 23, 2019, director Chu said: The film's theatrical release in China was considered unsuccessful, finishing eighth at the box office opening weekend and losing half of its screens from Saturday to Sunday. Initial reports stated that the film failed to pass $1 million
opening weekend following a combined $810,000 on Friday and Saturday, but the figure was later updated to a total of $1.2 million. In
South Korea, the film failed at the box office, finishing sixth on its opening weekend and by its second week the film fell to fourteenth place. In total, the film only made a little over $1.1 million there.|upright=0.8 On review aggregation website
Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 91%, based on 374 reviews, with an average rating of 7.7/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "With a terrific cast and a surfeit of visual razzle dazzle,
Crazy Rich Asians takes a satisfying step forward for screen representation while deftly drawing inspiration from the classic – and still effective – rom-com formula." On
Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 74 out of 100, based on 50 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. Audiences polled by
CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale, while
PostTrak reported filmgoers gave it an 85% positive score and a 65% "definite recommend".
Ann Hornaday, writing for
The Washington Post, deemed the film an "escapist rom-com delight" and remarked that "it will more than satisfy the sweet tooth of romantic comedy fans everywhere who have lately despaired that the frothy, frolicsome genre they adore has been subsumed by raunch and various shades of gray"; she also compared the film's rom-com themes to
Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994).
Time magazine published an extended cultural review of the film by Karen Ho, which compared the
high fashion appeal of the film to rival the best of previous films such as
The Devil Wears Prada (2006). Ho summarizes the film's success as an uphill battle against the season's predominantly superhero oriented audiences, writing: "To many in Hollywood,
Crazy Rich Asians might look like a risky bet. It's the first modern story with an all-Asian cast and an Asian-American lead in 25 years; the last
Joy Luck Club, was in 1993. It's an earnest romantic comedy in a sea of action and superhero films... In fact, it seems destined to be a hit." In the same magazine,
Stephanie Zacharek called the film as "simply great fun, a winsome romantic comedy and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags," while at the same time hailing the film as a breakthrough in representation and lauded the performances and chemistry of Wu and Golding as well as the supporting performances (particularly Yeoh,
Ken Jeong,
Nico Santos, and
Awkwafina).
Peter Travers of
Rolling Stone gave the film four stars out of five; he called it "frothy fun" and a "hilarious, heartfelt blast" while hailing the film as "making history" in its cultural representation in mainstream cinema and highlighting the performances (particularly Yeoh, whose performance he called "layered"). Writing for
Chicago Sun-Times,
Richard Roeper described the film as a "pure escapist fantasy fun" and "24-karat entertainment" while praising Wu's and Golding's performances and chemistry, and complimented Golding's natural onscreen presence and his good sense of comedic timing. David Sims of
The Atlantic lauded the film as a "breath of fresh air" and a "charming throwback" to the classic romantic comedy films while commending Chu's direction, the "hyperactive" screenplay, and the performances of Wu and Yeoh.
Justin Chang in a review for the
Los Angeles Times found the film worthy of comparison to other films using an Asian ensemble cast including
Memoirs of a Geisha,
Letters from Iwo Jima, and
The Joy Luck Club. Chang found the supporting cast performance of Yeoh to be exceptional, writing: "You can't help but hang on Eleanor's (Michelle Yeoh's) every word. In a crisp, authoritative, sometimes startlingly vulnerable performance that never lapses into dragon-lady stereotype, Yeoh brilliantly articulates the unique relationship between Asian parents and their children, the intricate chain of love, guilt, devotion and sacrifice that binds them for eternity." In his review for
The New York Times,
A. O. Scott indicates that the film's appeal surpasses contemporary
social mores dealing with wealth and touches on themes examined in the literature of "
endless luxury" over the centuries stating that this is "...part of the film's sly and appealing old-fashionedness. Without betraying any overt nostalgia,
Crazy Rich Asians casts a fond eye backward as well as Eastward, conjuring a world defined by hierarchies and prescribed roles in a way that evokes classic novels and films. Its keenest romantic impulse has less to do with Nick and Rachel's rather pedestrian love story than with the allure of endless luxury and dynastic authority. Which I guess is pretty modern after all". Peter Debruge of
Variety wrote that the movie "expertly manages to balance the opulence of incalculable wealth with the pragmatic, well-grounded sensibility" of its protagonist; he also drew comparisons of the film's visual style and tone to
Baz Luhrmann's
The Great Gatsby (2013) as well to the wedding sequence in
Mamma Mia! (2008).
Robbie Collin of
The Telegraph gave the film four stars out of five, and wrote that the film was "a mouthwatering slice of deluxe romcom escapism" and "plays like a
Jane Austen novel crossed with a
Mr. & Mrs. Smith brochure" while lending his praise on the performances of Wu, Golding, Yeoh, and Awkwafina. Scott Mendelson, writing for
Forbes, found the film to be below average and to have an uneven plot line with contrived humor similar to his opinion of the 2002 film
My Big Fat Greek Wedding, writing: "Without having read the book, I might argue that the core flaw of
Crazy Rich Asians is that it's so determined to be the Asian-American version of the conventional Hollywood romantic comedy that it becomes a deeply conventional romantic comedy, complete with the bad, the good and the generic tropes. It's well-acted and offers plenty of cultural specificity, but the supporting characters are thin and the need to be universal hobbles its drama." He was joined in his criticism by
Kate Taylor of
The Globe and Mail, who wrote: "As the obscenities of wealth accumulate while a large cast of Asian and Eurasian actors render their many silly characters, the source of the laughter becomes troubling." David Rooney of
The Hollywood Reporter gave a mixed review, in which he criticized the film's pacing as "uneven" but nevertheless similarly praised the performances and chemistry of Wu and Golding, and singled out Wu's performance as the film's real heart. Tony Wong of
Toronto Star argued the film "doesn't blow away stereotypes. It reinforces them. There is little room for subtlety here—the title underlines the mission statement. Asians are rich, vulgar and clueless".
Al Jazeera's Katrina Yu's article on reasons why the film was a box-office flop in China quoted Beijing-based filmmaker Stanley Tsang who described the film as "
the Panda Express of Chinese culture". According to Hu Shan, a Beijing-based creative producer and self-described movie buff, the film worked for Westerners who have little knowledge of Asian culture or Asian diaspora who are happy to see their own culture presented in a Hollywood movie. According to popular reviews posted on Chinese movie websites mtime and douban, "
Crazy Rich Asians wasn't a celebration of Asian culture – it was a demonisation of it," arguing that the film only shows Chinese culture in the eyes of Westerners and reinforced the cliche stereotypes. Other Chinese cinema lovers criticized the
orientalism in the film, pointing out that the character Eleanor, who represented the Chinese tradition in the film, was portrayed as "villainous and backward" and Rachel, who represented the West, won in the end, implying "thanks to the wind from the West, the old and unprogressive East is given a new life".
Legacy Actor
Ke Huy Quan, who had quit acting after
Second Time Around (2002) due to the lack of opportunities for Asian actors, said he was inspired to return to the profession by the positive representation of Asians in
Crazy Rich Asians. Quan said: "I saw my fellow Asian actors up on the screen, and I had serious
FOMO because I wanted to be up there with them". Among Quan’s first films back would be
Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022), which stars
Crazy Rich Asians actress Michelle Yeoh as the lead. Both Yeoh and Quan would go on to win
Academy Awards for their performances. As a tribute to the film, clips of Yeoh on the red carpet promoting
Crazy Rich Asians can be briefly seen in the universe where Yeoh's character Evelyn is an accomplished actress.
Crazy Rich Asians is frequently cited as a milestone for Hollywood films within Asian representation. It was the first major film released in the United States since
The Joy Luck Club (1993) to feature an Asian cast. Its success led to a $30 million budget and a profit $230 million for mainstream audience support. The film is often said to have paved the way for movies and TV shows to center on Asian culture, story, and timelines by major studios. ==Casting criticism==