Rush Hour 4 Is in the Works, Donald Trump Reportedly Helped Greenlight

A new Rush Hour movie is in the works — and President Donald Trump reportedly helped make it happen.

Multiple outlets reported on Tuesday, November 25, that Paramount has greenlit Rush Hour 4. Director Brett Ratner, who helmed all three previous installments, will reportedly be returning for the new project.

Variety and Semafor reported that Trump, 79, requested the studio revive the buddy cop franchise.

No additional details about the movie have been revealed.

Rush Hour stars Jackie Chan as Hong Kong Chief Inspector Lee and Chris Tucker as LAPD detective James Carter. In the first film, which debuted in 1998, the pair are forced to team up to rescue the daughter of the Chinese Consul, who was kidnapped by a dangerous crime lord.

The action flick was an instant box office success, earning $244 million globally and solidifying both Tucker and Chan as bonafide action and comedy stars. It spawned two sequels that were even more successful. 2001’s Rush Hour 2 brought home $347 million, while Rush Hour 3 earned $258 million in 2007.

Earlier this year, Chan, now 71, revealed he would love to do another Rush Hour film while teasing there could be one in the works.

“The script is still going on. I want to do a Rush Hour 4,” Chan said in a May interview with ScreenRant. “And I want to do [another] Shanghai Knights, Shanghai Dawn.”

As for when fans could expect a fourth Rush Hour movie, Chan joked that he hoped it would come sooner rather than later.

“Ask the director, ask the studio, ask the writer,” the actor said of the possibility of Rush Hour 4. “Hurry up! Otherwise, Chris Tucker and me [will be] 100 years old. We’ll be old men doing Rush Hour.”

While it is unclear why Trump had an alleged impact on Rush Hour 4, he does have a friendship with Paramount owner Larry Ellison and an apparent connection to the Rush Hour films themselves through Ratner. Ratner’s latest project is the upcoming Amazon Prime documentary on First Lady Melania Trump, scheduled to be released in January 2026 on Amazon Prime. The documentary will be Ratner’s first project in 12 years, as he has not worked on any other movies since 2014’s Hercules.

In 2017, Ratner was accused of sexual assault by multiple individuals, including Olivia Munn, Natasha Henstridge and Elliot Page, at the height of the #MeToo movement. Ratner, now 56, denied the allegations at the time via a statement made by his lawyer, Martin Singer.

“I have represented Mr. Ratner for two decades, and no woman has ever made a claim against him for sexual misconduct or sexual harassment,” Singer said in a letter to the Los Angeles Times in 2017. “Furthermore, no woman has ever requested or received any financial settlement from my client.”

While Ratner denied the allegations, he subsequently stepped down from his role at Warner Bros.

“In light of the allegations being made, I am choosing to personally step away from all Warner Bros.- related activities,” Ratner said in a statement in 2017. “I don’t want to have any possible negative impact to the studio until these personal issues are resolved.”