Rush Hour TV series will feature the same characters, but younger

By Victor Beigelman | January 20, 2015 | 9:26pm

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Bill Lawrence, the TV producer best known for Scrubs and Cougar Town, has shared some details on the upcoming Rush Hour show he’s writing with Blake McCormick for CBS, with Brett Ratner executive producing. While Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker definitely won’t be reprising their roles of Detectives Lee and Carter, respectively, Lawrence did say that the show is sticking with those same characters—albeit played by younger actors. “New plot, same characters, a little younger, a little different, fish out of water,” Lawrence said to Nuke The Fridge. All told, Lawrence doesn’t seem particularly fazed by replacing the dynamic pair that made Rush Hour work in the first place. In fact, he doesn’t even need Chan’s replacement to be good at martial arts, saying, “You know how TV works. I’m going to go with the best actor and then I’ll make anything work.”

Very little is known about that new plot so far, but given that it’s the same characters and “fish out of water” set-up, it’s probably not far off the mark to guess that it will feature an Asian actor who can successfully frustrate a cocky black man, and who may or may not be able to deliver swift roundhouse kicks to bad guys. For his part, at least Lawrence said, “It’s a cool script. I’m psyched about it,” and proved his buddy-comedy bona fides by expressing love for “Midnight Run, favorite movie.”