Even though it’s been 16 years since the last installment released, rumors of another addition to the Rush Hour franchise have never truly gone away, even though you’d seriously hope blackballed and disgraced filmmaker Brett Ratner isn’t considered for the director’s chair.
The buddy cop capers may not have aged too well when viewed through a modern lens given the unending reliance on racially-motivated banter, but a combined box office haul of almost $850 million is reason enough to never discount the possibility of Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker teaming up one more time.
However, it was a number significantly bigger than that to cause a massive headache for Rush Hour 2, with the climactic scene that showers a casino in cash igniting unexpected issues. The production team crafted a trillion dollars in fake money, but it proved to be so convincing that extras on the set were pocketing the props and then trying to pass it off as legal tender in the outside world.
Things got so bad, in fact, that the Secret Service ended up getting involved to confiscate and destroy the evidence (one of their many remits is keeping an eye on fake movie money), but at least the production would have been able to say it was exceedingly good at its job having delivered counterfeit bills so real-looking that the authorities ended up getting involved.
More than 20 years on from the unfortunate incident, and Rush Hour 2 has been bickering its way back to prominence on streaming, with FlixPatrol revealing it as one of the biggest hits on Prime Video, iTunes, and Starz this week, replete with a trillion-dollar tale of woe.