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Sorry Jackie Chan fans, reports that he has signed on to appear in Rush Hour 4 and The Karate Kid 2 are simply false.
On Sunday, his Rush Hour co-star Chris Tucker posted on Instagram a birthday tribute to Chan, who turned 65 that day: An undated photo of the two reunited and making gestures showing four fingers. Fans immediately speculated they had signed on for a fourth movie in the buddy cop film franchise and expressed hope that they would. In addition, fresh rumors that Chan would reprise his role of Mr. Han in a second installment of the 2010 Karate Kid movie reboot have also surfaced recently.
“We have noticed that false information that Mr. Chan would act in the motion pictures Rush Hour 4 and The Karate Kid 2 is spreading through multiple social media platforms, and that certainly apparently infringing parties have misappropriated the personal WeChat and email accounts of Mr. Esmond Ren, a motion picture industry professional, to release false information concerning the hiring of the crew, casting, audition and other matters in connection with the pictures Rush Hour 4 and The Karate Kid 2,” Chan’s management company said in a statement posted on the actor’s website.
“With respect to the above information, on behalf of Mr. Chan, we hereby declare that any and all such information, as spread by such infringers, relating to Mr. Chan providing or about to provide acting services in the motion pictures Rush Hour 4 and/or The Karate Kid 2 is false; any relevant information released by any infringer through appropriating the personal WeChat and email accounts of Mr. Esmond Ren is false, and Mr. Chan does not have anything to do with such released information or the content thereof,” the statement said.
Chan and Tucker played Chief Inspector Lee and Detective James Carter in Rush Hour in 1998, Rush Hour 2 in 2001 and Rush Hour 3 in 2007.
Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images
The sequel rumors are not unfounded. This past January, Tucker had said on Vince Carter and Kent Bazemore‘s Winging It podcast that Rush Hour 4 was in the works, saying, “It’s not in pre-production. We’re working on a few things [for] the script. Jackie wants to do it. I want to do it. The studio wants to do it. We’re trying to get it together. It looks like it’s getting together right.”
In 2017, Chan had told the San Francisco Chronicle in a video interview, “Good news. Next year. Rush Hour 4. I hope the script is done. Day after tomorrow, we’re meeting with the director and Chris Tucker, and make sure we’re going on the right track.”
Meanwhile, Deadline reported in 2014 that The Karate Kid 2 was in the works and that Breck Eisner was set to direct it for Sony Pictures. Chan told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2017, “Before there was a script, not very good, but now the script is going well, but the kid [Jaden Smith] is so tall already. The problem is he’s not [a] kid anymore. You cannot say ‘Karate Man.’ We’re looking for something probably, I don’t know, I don’t know.”
“I know [producer] Will Smith, he’d love to do a Karate Kid 2,” he added.