Brett Ratner

Brett Ratner
Ratner at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival
Born	March 28, 1969 (1969-03-28) (age 40) Miami Beach, Florida, U.S.
Occupation	Director
Years active	1990–present

Brett Ratner (born March 28, 1969) is an American filmmaker and music video director. He is best known for his films such as The Family Man, Red Dragon, the Rush Hour series, and X-Men: The Last Stand. He was also a producer on the Fox drama, Prison Break.

Early life

Ratner was born in Miami Beach, Florida to Marcia Presman, the daughter of Eastern European Jews who lived in Cuba before moving to Florida in the 1960s.^[1] His father was Ronny Ratner, the son of a wealthy Miami businessman. Ratner's parents married when he was in his senior year of high school, and his father died in 2006.^[2]

Ratner attended high school in Israel^[2] and is a 1990 graduate of New York University.^[3]

Rush Hour 3 has a scene where a girl takes off a wig and Chris Tucker accuses her of being a man. Ratner said to the Advocate magazine that this scene was based on an event from his own life. Ratner said, "That's from my personal experience. My first blow job was from a man, but I didn't know it was a man. That's where that comes from. It's based on personal experience. It happens to a lot of people." Ratner continued, "The reaction is 'Oh, shit!' if you're not gay, which is funny, I think."^[4]

Career

Directing

Ratner directed several music videos and one movie, the 1997 action comedy Money Talks, before reaching commercial success with the action-comedy Rush Hour (1998), starring Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker, both of whom reunited with Ratner for two sequels, Rush Hour 2 (2001) and Rush Hour 3 (2007). Ratner was under consideration to direct X-Men (2000) and Superman Returns (2006), although both were eventually directed by Bryan Singer. After Singer left the X-Men franchise to direct Superman Returns, Ratner became director of X-Men: The Last Stand (2006).

In May 2008, it was announced that Ratner would be directing the upcoming long in-development Beverly Hills Cop IV.^[5]

Screen appearances

Ratner was seen on MTV series Punk'd when Hugh Jackman, who portrays Wolverine in the X-Men films, was the subject of a practical joke that made it appear Ratner's $3.6 million home in Beverly Hills was destroyed by a BBQ grill explosion. Ashton Kutcher later arrived at his home and hugged him after Jackman was punk'd.^[6]

On April 25, 2007, Fox Broadcasting announced that he, Carrie Fisher, Garry Marshall, and Jon Avnet would be the judges for the network's filmmaking-competition reality TV series, On the Lot, which premiered to low ratings in May 2007.

He also appeared as himself in Entourage and in the movie Black and White.

Publishing

His publishing company, Rat Press, is re-releasing out of print books about Hollywood. The first three books, released on March 25, 2009, are about Marlon Brando, Robert Evans and Jim Brown.^[7]

Personal life

Ratner funds a scholarship to the New York Film Academy,^[8] where he has been a featured guest speaker. Ratner has recently created his own website called shooterseries.com where he has posted his previous projects. It has been recently known to expose an interview with Michael Jackson, who was a good friend of his during Jackson's final years.

Works

Ratner holding a producer credit for The 1 Second Film, September 2004

Film and television

Music videos

See also

• List of directors

References

External links

• Official site
• Brett Ratner at the Internet Movie Database
• Brett Ratner Producer Profile for The 1 Second Film
• New York Film Academy School of Film and Acting