Rush Hour (franchise)

The Rush Hour franchise is a series of American buddy cop action comedy films created by Ross LaManna and directed by Brett Ratner with both Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker in leading roles. All three films center around a pair of police detectives, Hong Kong Police Force (HKPF) Chief Inspector Lee (Chan) and Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) Detective James Carter (Tucker), who go on their series of misadventures involving corrupt crime figures in Hong Kong and Los Angeles. The films incorporate elements of martial arts, humor involving fish out of water situations and east–west culture shock, and the buddy cop subgenre. The films were released theatrically from 1998 to 2007, attaining commercial success, but critical reception was mixed.

Rush Hour was released on September 18, 1998, grossing over $240 million worldwide. Martin Lawrence was originally considered for the role of James Carter. Chris Tucker was finally chosen for the part. Director Brett Ratner, a big fan of Jackie Chan's Hong Kong movies, felt that American audiences would not be familiar with the jokes in Jackie's other movies, and deliberately re-used some of his gags. For example, the scene where Inspector Lee accidentally grabs Detective Johnson's (Elizabeth Peña) breasts is a reference to Jackie Chan's film Mr. Nice Guy (1997).^{[citation needed]} Rush Hour began as a spec script written in 1995 by screenwriter/novelist Ross LaManna. The screenplay was sold by LaManna's William Morris agent Alan Gasmer to Hollywood Pictures, a division of the Walt Disney Company, with Arthur Sarkissian attached as producer. After attaching director Ratner and developing the project for more than a year with producers including Sarkissian and Roger Birnbaum, Disney Studios Chief Joe Roth put the project into turnaround, citing concerns about the $34 million budget, and Chan's appeal to American audiences at the time. Several studios were interested in acquiring the project. New Line Cinema was confident in Ratner's talents, having done Money Talks with him, so they made a hard commitment to a budget and start date for the film.

Rush Hour 2 was released on August 3, 2001, and grossed over $340 million worldwide, making it the most financially successful film in the series. The film received mixed reviews compared with the first film. Other than Chan and Tucker, no cast members return to reprise their roles from the first film. John Lone, Zhang Ziyi, and Roselyn Sánchez join the cast while actors Don Cheadle, Saul Rubinek, Gianni Russo, and Jeremy Piven have guest or cameo appearances. The first two Rush Hour films both begin in Hong Kong and end in a United States airport.

Rush Hour 3 was officially announced on May 7, 2006, and filming began on July 4, 2006. The film, set in Paris and Los Angeles, was first released on August 10, 2007, and grossed over $250 million worldwide. Academy Award-winning film director Roman Polanski co-stars as a French police official involved in Lee and Carter's (Chan and Tucker's characters) case. Tzi Ma reprises his role as Ambassador Han, Lee's boss and friend who appeared in the first installment. This film has received an M rating by the Office of Film and Literature Classification (Australia) and a PG-13 rating by the MPAA for "sequences of action violence, sexual content, nudity and language". Additionally, the film was not screened in Chinese theaters in 2007 to make way for a larger variety of foreign films, according to a business representative (the quota for imported films is 20 each year).

Because of the films' collective box-office success, director Brett Ratner and writer Jeff Nathanson are considering the production of a fourth installment. In the DVD audio commentary for Rush Hour 3, Brett Ratner joked that the fourth Rush Hour film could be released in 2012. Ratner and Nathanson are exploring many concepts, including the use of the motion capture technique for the possible sequel and various different film projects with Chan and Tucker. It has been reported that the fourth film may be set in Moscow.

In July 2009, in an interview, Ratner stated that he "has been in contact with a long list of stars including Danny DeVito and Jet Li for possible roles in a potential Rush Hour 4", but stressed "nothing's been okayed yet". In a short interview with Vulture in 2011, Ratner stated that the cost of making a follow-up to X-Men: The Last Stand would have cost more than X-Men: First Class and "that's why another Rush Hour 4 probably won't get made, either: It'd be too much to pay me, Chris [Tucker], and Jackie [Chan] to come back."

In August 2011, in an interview with The Breakfast Club, Tucker stated in response to the question of a fourth by saying, "Rush Hour 4? Maybe you know, because that's a different kind of movie. You got the action and the stuff like that, and they pay 20 million dollars too... I'm just joking! No, you know Jackie Chan, you know I love working with him and those type of movies you can redo them and it's different, we'll see but I don't know though. But we've got some new stuff coming, so we'll see what happens."

In July 2012, series producer Arthur M. Sarkissian stated that a fourth film was being worked on with Chan and Tucker, and stated that he would welcome Brett Ratner back as a director if he would "do it in the right way." Sarkissian expressed some dissatisfaction with the third film, and admitted he wants the potential fourth film to be grittier, and have new ideas. Sarkissian is reportedly working on choosing which out of "four or five" screenwriters he has been talking to, should work on the script.