{"id":323747,"date":"2025-12-01T07:55:03","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T07:55:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/323747\/"},"modified":"2025-12-01T07:55:03","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T07:55:03","slug":"why-a-jackie-chan-sequel-says-a-whole-lot-about-trumps-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/323747\/","title":{"rendered":"Why a Jackie Chan Sequel Says a Whole Lot About Trump\u2019s Economy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>(Composite \/ Photos: Getty Images \/ MovieStillsDB \/ Shutterstock)<\/p>\n

DONALD TRUMP WANTS another Rush Hour movie<\/a>, so another Rush Hour movie he shall get.<\/p>\n

No matter that Jackie Chan is now 71 years old. No matter that the buddy-cop franchise leaned on racial stereotypes that might not play as well with even the woke-backlash audiences of today. Forget that the franchise\u2019s director, Brett Ratner, has been virtually unemployable ever since half a dozen women (including several celebrities<\/a>) accused him of sexual misconduct.<\/p>\n

None of this is material. Even if it ends up being a box-office flop, Rush Hour 4 would still be a bargain\u2014because producing this movie is a cheap way to extract something much, much more valuable from the president.<\/p>\n

Paramount Skydance will reportedly distribute the film<\/a>. Not coincidentally, Paramount Skydance is desperate to buy Warner Bros. Discovery<\/a>. It\u2019s a merger that would normally face ginormous antitrust obstacles, given that the companies collectively control a third of the North American box office<\/a>. But the administration has shown an inclination to dispense with regulatory hurdles when it comes to its friends. And ponying up the cash for a potential box-office dud will, if nothing else, further ingratiate Paramount to Trump.<\/p>\n

After all, let\u2019s say Rush Hour 4 costs a couple hundred million bucks. That\u2019s pocket change compared to a ~$75 billion merger.<\/p>\n

Of course, to potentially sweeten the pot, Trump will get a little payday in all of this too. Remember that until-recently-unemployable director, Ratner? He just directed Melania Trump\u2019s soft-focus documentary<\/a>, for which Amazon MGM paid the Trumps a cool $40 million.<\/p>\n

This cinematic saga is a tidy little microcosm of Trumpism: The resurrection of a sex pest, otherwise banished from polite society. The palm-greasing for Trump. The nostalgia for extremely dated and borderline racist cultural references. The president showing more interest in being a kung-fu film producer than leader of the free world. And, perhaps most importantly, <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Composite \/ Photos: Getty Images \/ MovieStillsDB \/ Shutterstock) DONALD TRUMP WANTS another Rush Hour movie, so another…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323748,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[236,88],"class_list":{"0":"post-323747","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}