Next For Brett Ratner: A New Action-Comedy?

Brett Ratner, the man behind all three Rush Hour movies, as well as X-Men 3: United (comic book fans… attack!), has a lot of potential projects up in the air at the moment. Those listed as upcoming for him are either not happening at all or are nowhere near getting going. However, according to the man himself, the film closest to actually being made is one called Trump Heist, which would see him returning to the type of action/crime-comedy of the Rush Hour movies.

Penned by Ocean’s Eleven writer Ted Griffin, the film tells the story of a bunch of employees at Trump Tower who plan together to rip-off some of the mega-rich residents of the building. The only cast member officially signed on thus far is Eddie Murphy as the leader of the crew, but Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle and Ratner regular Chris Tucker (I know… shocking!) are reportedly in consideration/negotiations to join the cast.

On top of that, Ratner also revealed details about some of the projects his name has been attached to: Brazilian music documentary Carnivale 3D was offered to him years ago (by Quincy Jones, no less) but he says he was never involved in any way with it, his Blue Blood TV pilot was never picked up, and the rumor about him making a Guitar Hero movie turns out to have only been precisely that… a rumor.

Lastly, on more high profile projects, Ratner also revealed that for Conan, “We’re just budgeting the script and trying to figure out when’s a good time and where to shoot it. It’s kind of a global landscape.” And on directing Beverly Hills Cop 4, he said, “I don’t know. I’m developing the script.”

Ratner is a director that made comic book and movie fans extremely angry, sometimes to the point of craziness, on message boards and blog comments sections, because of what he did with the third X-Men movie. Although I don’t share the flaming angry passion that some do, I can nonetheless totally understand some of the grievances some people had.

However, no matter what Ratner may have done to certain projects in the past, he ain’t the worst director in the world, not even close. He did a pretty decent job with the first two Rush Hour movies (although he seriously nuked the fridge with the third one); no, they’re nothing great, but they’re at least entertaining, if throwaway, pieces of cinematic entertainment.

I have mixed feelings about this Trump Heist movie – on the one hand I like the sound of the idea, and the bringing together of such a cast for an action/crime-comedy like this. But at the same time I’m not quite sure how it would turn out – it has the potential to work very well and be much fun, or it could all go pear shaped and just not work.

It could go either way, I just hope it goes the right one…

Do you like the sound of Trump Heist? Or are you a self-confessed impassioned Brett Ratner hater, and thus will avoid/hate anything he puts his hand to?

Source: /Film