Rush Hour (film series)

Rush Hour
Rush Hour trilogy on DVD
Directed by	Brett Ratner
Produced by	Roger Birnbaum Jonathan Glickman Arthur M. Sarkissian Jay Stern Robert Birnbaum Michael Poryes
Screenplay by	(Rush Hour) Jim Kouf and Ross LaManna Story by Ross LaManna (Rush Hour 2 & 3) Screenplay by Jeff Nathanson
Based on	Characters created by Ross LaManna
Starring	Jackie Chan Chris Tucker
Music by	Lalo Schifrin Mark Mothersbaugh Ira Hearshen Nile Rodgers
Edited by	Mark Helfrich Robert K. Lambert Mark Possy Billy Weber Don Zimmerman
Distributed by	New Line Cinema
Release date	1998–2007
Running time	279 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$263 million
Box office	$850.6 million

The Rush Hour franchise is a series of three Chinese-American martial arts/action-comedy buddy cop films created by Ross LaManna, directed by Brett Ratner, and distributed by New Line Cinema. All three films center on a pair of police detectives: a Hong Kong Police Force inspector and an American LAPD detective (portrayed by Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker) who go on a series of misadventures often involving corrupt crime figures. The films were released theatrically between 1998 and 2007, and have achieved commercial success and incorporate elements of martial arts, humor, and the buddy cop subgenre.

Rush Hour was released on September 18, 1998 grossing $244,386,864 worldwide.Martin Lawrence and Dave Chappelle were originally considered for the role of James Carter, Eddie Murphy turned down the role and signed on to Holy Man instead. Chris Tucker was finally chosen for the part. Director Brett Ratner, a big fan of Jackie Chan's Hong Kong movies, felt that American audiences would not be familiar with the jokes in Jackie's other movies, and deliberately re-used some of his gags. For example, the scene where Inspector Lee accidentally grabs Detective Johnson's (Elizabeth Peña) breasts is a reference to Jackie Chan's film Mr. Nice Guy (1997).Rush Hour began as a spec script written in 1995 by screenwriter/novelist Ross LaManna. The screenplay was sold by LaManna's William Morris agent Alan Gasmer to Hollywood Pictures, a division of the Walt Disney Company, with Arthur Sarkissian attached as producer. After attaching director Ratner and developing the project for more than a year with producers including Sarkissian and Roger Birnbaum, Disney Studios Chief Joe Roth put the project into turnaround, citing concerns about the $34-million budget, and Chan's appeal to American audiences at the time. Several studios were interested in acquiring the project. New Line Cinema was confident in Ratner's talents, having done Money Talks with him, so they made a hard commitment to a budget and start date for Rush Hour.