RUSH HOUR 4 Is Moving Forward
I haven't thought about the Rush Hour franchise for years, so I was surprised to here that Rush Hour 4 is actually going to happen. It's been five years since Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker teamed up for Rush Hour 3, and according to producer Arthur Sarkissian, the two stars are attached to reprise their roles yet again.
I thought the first Rush Hour was entertaining, I didn't really care for the second, and I've never seen the third, so I can't say I'm really all that excited to see a fourth one. Here's what Sarkissian said during an interview with Crave Online,
I am working on Rush Hour 4 right now with Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan. I’m trying to do it closer to how I did Rush Hour 1, more down to earth, more gritty, introduce two new characters and make it real the way the first one was. I personally was not happy with the third one. I thought 1 and 2 were very good. I think 3 got out of hand a little bit. It’s not a matter of just bringing them back to do another segment of that or a sequel to it by putting them in another city and having them bicker. I don’t want that. I want something new.
The two new characters will most likely be younger blood to freshen things up,
Maybe younger, maybe Chris is now married, maybe Jackie is married to Octavia Spencer, I don’t know. Married to Chris’s cousin, they live in Shanghai, Chris goes out to visit them. I don’t know, I want something energetic.
As of right now, the director of the first three movies, Brett Ratner, is not attached to directed the fourth one. As you read above, Sarkissian wasn't a big fan of the third film, so according to the producer, if Ratner comes back he has to do it right,
If he wants to do it he’s more than welcome to do it but he’s got to do it in the right way.
The movie would probably be a lot better without Ratner's involvement. Sarkissian goes on to talk about how this fourth film was inspired by Fast Five, and how his new vision involves putting Lee and Carter in a somewhat of a different genre than the previous films,
One of the things that surprised me and actually excited me was how they did Fast Five. They kept the characters, they took them and they put them in a whole different world. They put them in the world of a heist movie and it worked. I think that was brilliant what they did because if you’re not careful, what happens is you just keep repeating yourself. There’s not much you can do. You’ve got to be very careful but that’s where creativity and energy and good thought and a little bit of hard work comes to try and give them something that’s in that world but a little different.
Could be an interesting take on the franchise, but I think I'm done with it. How do you feel about the Rush Hour franchise? Would you be interested in a seeing a fourth movie?