Donald Trump reportedly pushing for Rush Hour 4
Director Brett Ratner is “cancelled”? No problem, he’s a friend of the President.
The American President really wants to see Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker on the screens again. So he puts pressure on Hollywood.
According to the very serious information site Semafor (created by two former employees of Bloomberg and the New York Times) Donald Trump is now pushing the Paramount studio to produce Rush Hour 4…if the studio wins the acquisition of Warner Bros.
At this time, Paramount does not own the rights to Rush Hour. The first three films were distributed by New Line Cinema, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. However, Paramount is in the running to buy Warner. And if it wins the auction (Netflix is also interested), the group would control the studio’s entire library and its intellectual properties, including Rush Hour.
The project Rush Hour 4 has already been pitched to studios many times, but the biggest obstacle is Bret Ratner, director of the first three films, and caught in sex scandals. In October 2017, during the Me Too movement, several women accused Ratner of sexual assault. Warner Bros. then severed all ties with him, blocking any possibility of a follow-up with him.
Except that Donald Trump is a distant friend of Brett Ratner, he who recently directed Melaniaa documentary about First Lady Melania Trump for Amazon MGM Studios, (due in theaters January 30, 2026). And the new boss of Paramount, the billionaire Larry Ellison – co-founder of Oracle – is also close to the President, whose campaign he financed.
Donald Trump has always had a taste for old-fashioned “macho” and oversized productions. He particularly likes action films and comedies from the late 80s and 90s, such as BloodsportAnd Rush Hour ticks all the boxes of his preferences: action, fights, explosions, confident heroes and broad humor. But even more, According to Semafor, Rush Hour 4 is the symbol of a political will, aimed at relaunching franchises which are part of a broader movement of conservative cultural backlash, which Semafor describes as a “red-lash” aimed at imposing a certain Republican cultural taste among the general public.
As a reminder, Rush Hour grossed $245 million worldwide and spawned two sequels: Rush Hour 2 (2001) and Rush Hour 3 (2007).
