If idle talk got movies made, we’d have twenty years’ worth of independent films from George Lucas, multiple Alien sequels from Sir Ridley Scott (starring Sigourney Weaver), and Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis (as well as On the Road). Sometimes, it’s a tragedy that effusive chatter can’t put a picture in the can overnight; other times, it’s a blessing. Jackie Chan’s proposed reunion with Rush Hour co-star Chris Tucker in a non-Rush Hour movie sounds like one for the latter category.
MTV’s Larry Carroll got the big scoop whilst interviewing Jackie for The Forbidden Kingdom, but he couldn’t get much in the way of detail out of the aging martial arts star. All that’s known at this point is a) the stars shook hands on the “deal”, b) it definitely won’t be a Rush Hour movie (that’s good), and c) they don’t have a screenwriter or a director. In other news, John Landis has a call in to Steven Spielberg about reviving their Creature from the Black Lagoon project, and it’s a done deal as soon as Spielberg acknowledges that he got the call and forces Universal to give Landis a $100 million budget.
I’m not giving Carroll shit here; obviously, if I got this scoop, I’d run it as an exclusive, too. But Jackie loves to talk. And Chris Tucker loves to not make movies. Had Rush Hour 3 not been the lowest-grossing entry in the franchise (albeit by $1 million), I’d buy that a studio might be interested in making these guys’ salaries for a departure of some sort. Right now, it’s diminishing returns. If you’re liable to get your hopes up for something like this… don’t.