Paramount Skydance is officially reviving the Rush Hour franchise — and the unexpected force behind its resurrection appears to be President Donald Trump.
According to multiple reports, Trump personally pushed for Rush Hour 4 to move forward, lobbying on behalf of director Brett Ratner, whose career derailed in 2017 after several women accused him of sexual misconduct. Ratner has denied the allegations and was never charged.
Still, for years, studios refused to work with him, leaving the long-awaited sequel stuck in limbo.
That changed after Trump intervened. Puck’s Matthew Belloni reported that Paramount made the decision to greenlight the project “after prodding from Trump on behalf of Brett Ratner.”
The president is said to have lobbied his friend and supporter Larry Ellison — the largest shareholder of the newly formed Paramount Skydance — to get the sequel made. Earlier this year, Paramount Global also settled a lawsuit with Trump over a critical CBS News interview, adding another layer to an already tangled web of studio-politics entanglement.
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Paramount has now secured financing for Rush Hour 4 and inked a new distribution deal with Warner Bros. Discovery, which previously controlled the franchise under its New Line banner. “Get ready for the dumbest possible state-controlled media,” Belloni wrote on social media.
Under the arrangement, Paramount will collect a flat distribution fee when the film hits theaters, Variety reported, while Warner Bros. receives an undisclosed share of box office revenue before financiers recoup costs. Neither studio — nor the White House — responded to requests for comment.
The move comes amid a broader reshaping of Hollywood. Paramount Skydance, Comcast, and Netflix have all submitted first-round bids to acquire Warner Bros., owner of tentpole franchises from DC to Harry Potter.
The Rush Hour revival marks a bold swing for the newly combined Paramount Skydance, which plans to nearly double its output to up to 18 films by 2028. But the sequel faces a drastically different box office landscape: theatrical comedies have struggled, Jackie Chan has scaled back U.S. studio work at age 71, and Chris Tucker hasn’t headlined a major film since 2007. Still, both stars are expected to return.
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The first three Rush Hour films earned more than $850 million worldwide and became major hits, particularly in China. Yet despite Hollywood’s increasing reliance on franchise IP, Ratner struggled for years to secure financing for a fourth film.
Ratner has recently been re-emerging in Trump’s orbit. In late 2024, he was tapped to direct a $40 million documentary about Melania Trump for Amazon Prime. Melanie Kohler — who accused Ratner of sexual assault and was later sued by him for defamation before the case settled — said in a 2017 statement that she hoped Ratner would be held “accountable for the way he’s treated the nobodies of the world or at least the way he treated me”.
Trump’s growing involvement in Hollywood is sparking criticism. He has informally tapped Sylvester Stallone, Jon Voight, and Mel Gibson as cultural emissaries, and has repeatedly stated he wants to restore what he calls “classical masculinity” to studio filmmaking. For some critics, the Rush Hour 4 revival fits neatly within that broader political-cultural agenda.
With the franchise now back in motion — and with Trump’s fingerprints all over its return — Rush Hour 4 is shaping up to be much more than another reboot. It’s a flashpoint in an industry reckoning with politics, power, and who gets to shape Hollywood’s future.
