Rush hour on Air Force one as Melania director Brett Ratner joins Trump China trip

Brett Ratner, the director behind the Rush Hour movies and a documentary on Melania Trump, is accompanying Donald Trump to China for his summit with Xi Jinping.

Trump is due to hold talks with the Chinese leader on Thursday and Friday over pressing economic and geopolitical issues, including Iran and Taiwan. The US president was accompanied on Air Force One by CEOs and top executives from major US tech and finance firms, including Apple’s Tim Cook, Tesla’s Elon Musk and BlackRock’s Larry Fink. Ratner was among the groups as well.

The president is reportedly a huge fan of Rush Hour, which revolves around detectives James Carter and Yan Naing Lee – played by Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan respectively – as they navigate their cultural differences and investigate crimes in Hong Kong, Paris and Los Angeles.

His spokesperson, Victoria Palmer-Moore, said he would use the trip to scout for filming locations for the latest instalment of the Rush Hour franchise. She added that Ratner plans to shoot “a lot” of Rush Hour 4 in China.

Last November, Trump encouraged billionaire Larry Ellison, the primary financial force behind Paramount Skydance, to bring back the franchise once Paramount went through with its controversial purchase of Warner Bros, according to US news outlet Semafor.

Despite Trump’s backing, that deal is yet to be confirmed, as hundreds of Hollywood actors and directors have called for regulators to block Paramount’s acquisition over fears of job cuts and a drastically scaled back movie slate.

Trump’s support has allowed Ratner to make a comeback in Hollywood after being sidelined after accusations of sexual misconduct during the #MeToo movement in 2017. Ratner denies all of the allegations.

In 2026, Ratner released Amazon-backed documentary Melania, which followed the first lady during the 20 days before Trump’s second inauguration. A critical and commercial flop, the documentary drew $16.7m at the box office against a production budget of $40m. It was the first movie directed by Ratner in more than a decade.

The original Rush Hour was an instant hit in 1998, topping the US box office charts upon its release. Its sequel Rush Hour 2 was also a huge commercial success in 2001, before Ratner’s critically and commercially disappointing Rush Hour 3 was released in 2007.

Despite rumours of a fourth film circulating for almost two decades, with Chan suggesting in 2017 that he and Tucker had agreed upon a new script, development had stalled until Trump intervened in late 2025.