A Rush Hour television pilot produced by Rush Hour movie director Brett Ratner is being picked up by CBS.
CBS is hitting Rush Hour traffic, landing the high-profile series adaptation of the blockbuster movie franchise with a pilot production commitment. The hourlong action comedy, written/executive produced by Bill Lawrence and Blake McCormick and executive produced by the movies’ director Brett Ratner and producer Arthur Sarkissian, was taken out to the broadcast networks this week by Warner Bros. TV. CBS pursued it aggressively just as it recently did with another big WBTV package, Supergirl, which received a series commitment.
While the thought of a Rush Hour TV show may seem appealing at first (the first movie is a classic and the franchise as a whole made $845 million worldwide), this doesn’t seem like it’ll be that appealing for a couple of reasons.
First, the show is going to stick fairly close to the film’s origins. According to Deadline, the show will follow the unlikely pairing of a Chinese Hong Kong police officer and a black LAPD officer. Cultural misunderstandings and hilarity presumably ensues. If this sounds a bit… tired for a television series, it’s because it probably is.
Second, the whole appeal of the Rush Hour franchise was to see Jackie Chan do his thing while bouncing off of the underrated Chris Tucker. However, since both Chan and Tucker won’t be a part of the television series, it’s hard to see who the TV series could get who could be as charismatic as the films’ leads were on screen (the duo was the only reason the odd couple, buddy-cop thing worked and seemed somewhat fresh, even in 1998).
Here’s to hoping the show can be good but unless CBS is able to land some major casting choices, I’m sticking to the first film for now.
