The Trump-requested fourth installment of disgraced Melania director Brett Ratner’s blockbuster franchise is in trouble.
Filming for Rush Hour 4—which was supposed to take place in China, Saudi Arabia, and Africa—has been pushed back from this spring and summer to September at the earliest, according to a new report from Puck.
Neither of the film’s two stars, Jackie Chan, 72, nor Chris Tucker, 54, has signed a contract for the film, the Hollywood insider reported. They have rejected Ratner’s initial $8 million offers, which pale in comparison to the roughly $20 million each made for Rush Hour 3 in 2009.
The actors have also not been offered “pay-or-play” deals—guaranteed payouts regardless of the film’s cancellation. This “can be a sign that financing is not locked‚” Puck’s Matthew Belloni writes.
“It’s unclear if the planned $115 million to $120 million in production financing is solidly lined up,” Belloni continues.
The news has surely annoyed President Trump, who specifically requested the franchise reboot last summer.
Trump, 79, was said to have “personally pressed” Paramount CEO David Ellison about fast-tracking the film’s production. The MAGA-friendly executive, who is in the midst of an $111 billion merger that requires Trump’s approval, may assist the film to appease the president.
Ratner, 57, who left Hollywood for nearly a decade after he was accused by multiple women of sexual assault, including actress Olivia Munn, had hoped that his documentary about the first lady would be his big Hollywood comeback.
He couldn’t have been more wrong.
The Amazon-backed film earned just over $16 million at the box office, a high figure for a documentary, but minuscule when compared to its $70 million budget, which includes $30 million in marketing by Amazon.
At the film’s premiere, two-thirds of the documentary’s New York crew members requested their names be removed from the credits. Some crew members, many of whom were told by Amazon that they could not opt out of making the film for the risk of losing their jobs, even hoped it would flop.
“Unfortunately, if it does flop, I would really feel great about it,” an anonymous crew member told Rolling Stone.
“I feel a little bit uncomfortable with the propaganda element of this,” another added, though many cited Ratner as the primary reason working on the film was difficult.
Ratner also appeared in the Epstein files, pictured alongside Jeffrey Epstein in damning photographs of the two men cuddling young women. When cornered by Piers Morgan about the image, Ratner stuttered through his response.
“Oh, well, that particular picture—that picture in particular—happened around 20 years ago,” he said, while declining to identify the woman. “I had never been in contact with Jeffrey Epstein before that photo, and I was never in contact with him after. So that’s a picture of my—me and my fiancée at some event.”
The disgraced director’s Hollywood comeback has hit yet another roadblock. Without the film’s biggest stars signed on, it’s unclear how Rush Hour 4 will proceed.
