Are You Ready For RUSH HOUR 4?

Producer Arthur Sarkissian has revealed to Crave Online he’s currently developing RUSH HOUR 4 with Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan. Sarkissian insists this new installment will bring the franchise back to its “gritty” (?) roots and ditch the silliness that sunk the third film.

Sarkissian on tone: “I’m trying to do it closer to how I did Rush Hour, more down to earth, more gritty, introduce two new characters and make it real the way the first one was. I personally was not happy with the third one. I thought 1 and 2 were very good. I think 3 got out of hand a little bit. It’s not a matter of just bringing them back to do another segment of that or a sequel to it by putting them in another city and having them bicker. I don’t want that. I want something new.”

The "something new": "Maybe younger, maybe Chris is now married, maybe Jackie is married to Octavia Spencer, I don’t know. Married to Chris’s cousin, they live in Shanghai, Chris goes out to visit them. I don’t know, I want something energetic.”

The script: “Right now we haven’t decided yet but I’m very close to making a decision. I have about four or five names that we’re roaming on right now.”

On whether or not director Brett Ratner will be back: “If he wants to do it he’s more than welcome to do it but he’s got to do it in the right way.”

Not real sure the world needs another RUSH HOUR pic but I guess that doesn’t matter when there’s money to be made. I guess we just be glad Sarkissian isn’t trying to reboot the series. I’d much rather see Tucker and Chan do their schtick again than have a couple of newbies roll in and attempt to mimic them. You can also apply that statement to the BEVERLY HILLS COP, LETHAL WEAPON, and BAD BOYS franchises.

The real question here is “How exactly did Sarkissian convince Chan and Tucker, both of whom have expressed an intense interest to leave the RUSH HOUR series behind them, to come back?” I’m sure a truckload of money was involved -- a GIANT one since both actors 25mil apiece for RUSH HOUR 3 -- but there has to be more. Chan publicly dissed the last film (Exact quote: “When we finished filming, I felt very disappointed because it was a movie I didn’t appreciate and I did not like the action scenes involved. I felt the style of action was too Americanized and I didn’t understand the American humor. Nothing particularly exciting stood out that made this movie special for me … I spent four months making this film and I still don’t fully understand the humor”) and recently retired from making action films. And Tucker …well he doesn’t do much these days other than work on his stand-up routine and dodge the IRS. What Sarkissian have on these guys?

USELESS KNOWLEDGE: Chris Farley and Martin Lawrence were the original choices for Lee and Carter.

[via Crave Online]