President Donald Trump is pressing for a Hollywood return to the loud, swaggering action-comedies that dominated the 1990s, with a new Rush Hour film emerging as the most immediate test of how far his cultural ambitions can reach in a second term.
According to people familiar with the talks, Trump has personally encouraged Oracle founder and major donor Larry Ellison — who is on the cusp of gaining control of Paramount Global — to revive the Rush Hour franchise. The series, directed by Brett Ratner and headlined by Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker, fused martial-arts choreography, slapstick exchanges, and racially charged humor into box-office hits between 1998 and 2007 before becoming a casualty of the industry’s shifting cultural boundaries.
Ellison’s Skydance consortium is finalizing its takeover of Paramount and is widely expected to engineer a merger with Warner Bros. Discovery, placing two historic studios — and their vast libraries — under his command. Within conservative entertainment circles, expectations are already rising that Ellison’s control could mark a larger break from what they see as Hollywood’s risk-averse, ideology-driven status quo, according to reporting from Semafor.
Independent producer Dallas Sonnier, known for politically inflected genre films, predicted a cinematic swing back toward unapologetically masculine heroes. He forecast “a wave of classically male-driven movies with mentally tough, traditional, courageous, confident heroes. Maybe even a tad cocky, but dedicated to honor and duty. Plus, of course, a few explosions, gun battles, helicopters, fistfights, and car chases!”
Ratner, sidelined since 2017 after sexual-misconduct allegations, has quietly reemerged through Trump-aligned networks. He recently completed an Amazon documentary about First Lady Melania Trump and remains linked to Rush Hour through original producer Arthur Sarkissian, who also backed the 2024 pro-Trump film The Man You Don’t Know.
Both Chan and Tucker have steered clear of overt criticism of Trump. After the 2016 election, Chan urged the public to “give him a chance,” citing Trump’s business record. Tucker said in 2018 that he wanted the president “to be successful” and “to do the right thing,” declining to elaborate.
The White House would not comment on the president’s involvement in studio decision-making. Paramount also offered no comment.
The negotiations over Rush Hour mark the clearest sign yet that Trump intends to convert political influence into direct cultural output. While platforms like Amazon have occasionally extended symbolic gestures — including its reported $40 million purchase of Melania Trump’s documentary — major studios have generally kept Trump at distance on creative matters.
That posture may shift if Ellison finalizes control of a combined Paramount-Warner entity. Separate reporting this week indicated White House officials have already discussed preferred personnel changes at CNN, which would fall under the same corporate umbrella if the merger proceeds.
Whether or not Rush Hour 4 becomes a reality, the push underscores Trump’s larger project: reviving the unselfconscious bravado, broad humor, and explosive spectacle of late-20th-century popcorn filmmaking, a cultural style he has long praised from the campaign trail and from the residence.
