Ratner Wants To Helm “Rush Hour 4”
Despite Warner Bros. Pictures cutting ties with his RatPac Productions, despite the countless headlines over multiple sexual misconduct allegations, despite the critical drubbings of his films – Brett Ratner is still Brett Ratner and is never short on bravado.
THR reports that Ratner has reportedly been telling associates he’s going to direct a fourth film in the “Rush Hour” series. Studio sources emphatically tell the trade Ratner will not direct the film if there is one. A studio exec says:
“Brett has been walking around town telling people he’s going to direct a Rush Hour movie because it’s his only way back in. He’s trying to make believe he’s employable. Putting together a movie with him would be ‘a suicide mission’.”
However, neither Warners chairman and CEO Kevin Tsujihara or film studio chairman Toby Emmerich is prepared to tell Ratner that and have reportedly declined to comment or to rule out Ratner as a possible director for the project.
Franchise producer Arthur Sarkissian has long been pushing for a fourth movie and for a while last year it looked like it would be happening – then the Weinstein and subsequent Ratner scandal broke and the company put it on hold. Sarkissian says Warners has now put the film in turnaround – freeing him to commission a script with outside financing.
Should he succeed in assembling the elements, the studio has a chance to opt back into the project. Sarkissian says Ratner is “not attached” to the project at this point and he doesn’t know why Ratner would tell people that he is directing “Rush Hour 4”.