One of President Donald Trump’s pet film projects is benefiting from his official travel schedule by allowing the flick’s director to scout locations during his state visit to China this week.
Director Brett Ratner was spotted by reporters aboard Air Force One as Trump departed for China on Tuesday. A spokesperson for the filmmaker, Victoria Palmer-Moore, told the Washington Post that he will use the opportunity to scout locations for a fourth film in the “Rush Hour” buddy-cop franchise.
The films, which star American comedian Chris Tucker and Hong Kong-born Hollywood action legend Jackie Chan as a Los Angeles Police Department detective and a Hong Kong Police Force inspector who team up to solve crimes, were consistent box office draws across three separate releases in 1998, 2003 and 2007.
Trump has long been a fan of the franchise and has pushed for a series revival should billionaire Paramount owner Larry Ellison, a longtime friend of the president, successfully complete his purchase of Warner Brothers, which owns the rights to the characters and storylines.
If successful, a fourth “Rush Hour” film would mark a return to big Hollywood productions for Ratner, who was fired by Warner Brothers in November 2017 after six women — including actresses Olivia Munn and Natasha Henstridge — accused the director of sexual assault at the height of the “Me Too” movement.
Photographs of Ratner were also released as part of the Justice Department’s effort to put out files associated with investigations into deceased sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein.
The director has long denied any allegations of wrongdoing, and in 2023 he moved to Israel.
But he began to make moves towards returning to the American film industry the next year when he helmed an Amazon MGM Studios documentary which followed First Lady Melania Trump for the 20-day period proceeding her husband’s second inauguration in 2025.
The documentary, his first attempt at the genre, was also his first film project since his career imploded amid the sexual assault and misconduct allegations.
It grossed $16.4 million in the United States and Canada, though only ten percent of critics’ reviews on the aggregator Rotten Tomatoes are listed as positive.
The Independent’s film critic Nick Hilton described the documentary as “part propaganda ... and part sop to Big Tech companies who require constant regulatory approval for financial maneuverings” in a one-star review in which he compared it to the infamous Nazi documentary Triumph of the Will.
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