News of a new legacy sequel being greenlit in Hollywood ain’t nothing new — be it The Mummy 4, Scary Movie 6, Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, or 28 Years Later. News of a new legacy sequel being greenlit in Hollywood seemingly at the behest of the sitting President of the United States of America however? Well, that’s a little more unheard of. And so, with that being said, we can now confirm (via Variety) that Rush Hour 4 is officially in the works at Paramount — an announcement that follows word just two days ago through Semafor that Home Alone: Lost In New York star Donald Trump has been nudging the studio’s execs to green light a sequel in the action-comedy franchise.
For fans of the franchise, which seemed to have ended with 2007’s critically disfavoured Rush Hour 3, there is the promise of seeing Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker reprising their roles as unlikely buddy-cop duo Lee and Carter to look forward to. Somewhat more problematically however, Rush Hour 4 will also see the directorial return of disgraced director Brett Ratner. Having been blacklisted by Hollywood following a series of serious allegations of sexual misconduct and harassment were published in the Los Angeles Times back in 2017, Ratner made his directorial return earlier this year with $40 million Melania Trump documentary Melania, a film for which Ratner was given unprecedented access to America’s First Lady.
What Rush Hour 4’s plot will entail, when it will shoot, and indeed who else will come aboard the project very much remains to be seen at this point. But with Trump having also apparently mentioned wanting more movies like Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicle Bloodsport (already a reboot target in the past), don’t be surprised if more long-since thought done action franchises start getting new projects in the near future. Hey, who knows? Maybe Trump is a real big fan of The Nice Guys, too. We can dream, can’t we?