The film “Rush Hour 4” has entered the preparation stage, with the Paramount studio associated as the distributor of the next opus of this police franchise, Variety magazine announced on Tuesday.
This sequel, which has been in the preparation stage for a long time, would be the beneficiary of an intervention from the Oval Office of the White House: President Donald Trump personally asked the representatives of the Paramount studio to bring the “Rush Hour” franchise back to life, according to the Semafor publication, writes Agerpres.
Brett Ratner, who directed the first three films in this film series before his entire career was affected in 2017 by the revelations made by the #MeToo movement, will return to direct the fourth film.
The American filmmaker became a close friend of the American president’s family while directing the documentary “Melania”, for the release of which the Amazon platform paid 40 million dollars.
“Rush Hour 4”, which will mark the return of the protagonists from the original films, actors Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker, will be the first feature film to be directed by Brett Ratner after “Hercules”, a film with Dwayne Johnson, released in 2014.
Paramount Studios will be paid a flat distribution fee to release “Rush Hour 4” in theaters, multiple sources said, but will not be responsible for marketing or financing the film. Instead, studio Warner Bros. — which owns the production company New Line, behind the release of the original 1998 “Rush Hour” film and its 2001 and 2007 sequels — will collect first-come, which means the studio will receive a percentage of the proceeds before the financiers recoup their costs.
The original “Rush Hour,” about two cops who are forced to work together to rescue the kidnapped daughter of a Chinese diplomat, was a huge domestic success, grossing $244 million in 1998. Its two sequels, “Rush Hour 2” and “Rush Hour 3,” achieved even greater commercial success with ticket sales of $347 million. dollars and $258 million, respectively, despite mixed reviews.
In the period that has passed since these films had a dominant position in cinemas, comedies have begun to be disadvantaged at the box office. It is not clear yet the production schedule for “Rush Hour 4”, in the context in which Jackie Chan is already 71 years old, and Chris Tucker has not played a leading role since “Rush Hour 3” in 2007.
Paramount, which was recently bought by Skydance, needs new films to populate its production offering: the studio has set a goal of going from its eight releases a year to 15 releases in 2026, 17 releases in 2027 and 18 releases in 2028. The new chairman and CEO of the Paramount studio, David Ellison, is the son of billionaire Larry Ellison, one of Donald Trump’s most prominent financiers, who recently publicly praised Ellison’s management of the media company.
