Brett Ratner is one of Hollywood’s best hustlers. He can talk the talk but unfortunately his movies never rarely turn out as great as he makes them sound. With the WGA strike looming it’s looking like he’ll be moving ahead with his Hugh Hefner biopic as his next film. However, Ratner tells Moviehole that there’s another project on his radar. Take it away Brett:
“Eddie Murphy came to me with this idea to do a movie with all the comedians, with Chris Tucker – like this is his dream team – we haven’t gotten these actors yet, but Chris Tucker, Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, Jamie Foxx in one movie. And they all work in the Trump Towers, blue collar workers and one’s a door man and one’s a security guard and one’s a janitor. And they rip off the Trump Tower.”
This sounds purely like wishful thinking on Ratner and Murphy’s part… I’m sure the desire to do it is there for them but to get Tucker, Rock, Chappelle and Foxx to do it would cost a fortune. Nevertheless, Ratner has been playing accountant and knows how to get things rolling.
“[We'll do] it the way that Ocean’s Eleven did it, where they created deals or something,” says Ratner.
I’m kind of intrigued to see this but the proposed cast would really need to bring their A-game to make it work. These guys have been great stand-ups but spotty in movies (perhaps excluding Foxx, if you forget Stealth). If they do get a good script together (and all these major players come on board) hopefully egos won’t cripple it before cameras roll.
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This movie’s already been done. Only with Latinos. A heist pulled off by the janitor, the valet, etc… Its coming out August 31st. It’s called “Ladron Que Roba A Ladron”
Check it out at: http://www.lionsgate.com/ladron
The idea actually sounds okay, that’s not an insult, though unfortuantely it’s not a compliment either. Hey, if they could get the cast of Ocean’s 12, (Clooney, Pitt, Damon, Roberts and Garcia alone should have cost upwards of 80 mil just to get them in front of the camera, but the movie itself didn’t cost that much) they can get Chapelle, Rock, Muprhy & Foxx. The problem would be Tucker. The guy is lazy and extremely insecure. I remember when he was on the cover of GQ four or five years ago, with the headline Chris Tucker: The King Of Comedy. This was right after Rush Hour 2 came out, and he was at his most popular and money-earning apogee. Then he just sat back and did nothing else. If the guy wants to retire he should do like Patrick Swayze did and say, “I’m calling it quits.” But this not making a movie for five years at a stretch is going to prove to be murder for his career. Oh well, it’s his life.
The question is can they get a script worth making. Therein lies the rub! With Murphy attached, unless it’s a kids movie, chances are they can’t. Chris Rock shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the script. With Dave Chapelle attached, they have a shot at a good script if Chapelle writes or script-doctors is.
Had Ratner just stuck with X-Men 3 (which I quite liked despite the mashing of two seperate plots) I might have had more sympathy for this project. But after the turd that is Rush Hour 3 I have no faith in this project whatsoever. Isn’t Murphy considering Beverly Hills Cop 4? Unless the script emulates what made the first successful, that’ll be another useless 90 minutes (or more) of movie.