‘Wicked’ Director Jon M. Chu Sets Memoir With Random House

deadline.com:

Random House will publish a memoir by Wicked director Jon M. Chu this summer. Titled Viewfinder: A Memoir of Seeing and Being Seen, the book, co-authored with Jeremy McCarter, will be released July 23.

An announcement by Random House today says, “With striking candor and unrivaled insights, Chu offers a firsthand account of the collision of Silicon Valley and Hollywood – what it’s been like to watch his old world shatter and reshape his new one.

Ultimately, Viewfinder is about reckoning with your own story, becoming your most creative self, and finding a path all your own.” Before he directed such films as Crazy Rich Asians, In The Heights and the upcoming movie adaptation of the musical Wicked, Chu was “a movie-obsessed first-generation Chinese American, helping at his parents’ Chinese restaurant in Silicon Valley and forever facing the cultural identity crisis endemic to children of immigrants,” the release states. “Growing up on the cutting edge of 21st-century technology gave Chu the tools he needed to make his mark at USC film school, and to be discovered by Steven Spielberg, but he soon found himself struggling to understand who he was.” “Now, in his memoir, Chu dives deep into his life and work for the first time,” the statement continues, “telling the universal story of questioning what it means when your dreams collide with your circumstances, and exploring how it’s possible to succeed even when the world changes beyond all recognition.” World rights were acquired by Random House Editor in Chief Ben Greenberg from Lacy Lynch at Dupree Miller.

The book will be published in hardcover and digital formats by Random House, an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group.