New Line has announced that Rush Hour 3 is set to go into production next year.
Which is great news – just the other day we were thinking about how there aren’t really enough films where Chris Tucker goes into a room, shoots his mouth off and starts a fight that Jackie Chan has to join in and win; then goes into another room, shoots his mouth off and starts a fight that Jackie Chan has to join in and win; then goes into another room, shoots his mouth off and starts a fight that Jackie Chan has to join in and win. Until the end of the film.
For a while, it looked like Rush Hour 3 would never be made,
breaking the heart of every fan of generic, knockabout, casually
racist, semi-amusing fighting movies all around the world. And it was
all apparently the fault of Chris Tucker. His Rush Hour (DVDs) co-star Jackie
Chan explained to Rottentomatoes why Rush Hour 3 was held up to earlier in
the summer:
"[Chris] wants too much power. The movie company hasn’t obliged. He wants
final editing rights and the final look at the movie and so on … When
he asks me what I want, I say, ‘I don’t care,’ and he’ll scold me,
saying, ‘They make so much money off us. We’ll have to get it back."
Chris
Tucker had a point – the Rush Hour films did make an obscene amount of
money – almost $600 million between the two of them. And this sum of money led
Tucker to be unhappy at being offered a measly $20 million to star in
Rush Hour 3 – so unhappy, in fact, that he refused to sign up.
While Chris Tucker – who, since 1998, has only been seen in cinemas
doing the two Rush Hour films and on TV doing some stunned stuttering
after Kanye West said that thing about George Bush – sat in a corner
holding breath until he was given more money, the film’s scriptwriter
Jeff Nathanson went off and wrote Indiana Jones 4 and the director
Brett Ratner decided to direct X-Men 3.
But now, after being offered $20 million against 20% of gross, Chris
Tucker has finally told New Line that he wants Rush Hour 3 to go ahead. In
addition to Tucker’s millions, Jackie Chan will get $15 million against
15% of gross plus distribution rights in China and Hong Kong.
Rush Hour 3 will hit the cinemas in 2007, but what will the film be like? Why not find out by watching Rush
Hour or Rush Hour 2. We’re guessing it will be exactly the same. Exactly.
Read more:
Rush Hour 3 On The Fast Track – Comingsoon
[story by Stuart Heritage]