Arthur Sarkissian, who produced all three previous installments, was promoting the new CBS series Vegas at the Television Critics Association press tour, where he updated Fred Topel of Crave Online on his current projects, saying, “I am working on Rush Hour 4 right now with Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan."

Rush Hour 3 arrived in theaters all of five years ago, and was greeted with a collective shrug even from fans of the franchise, despite containing a truly inexplicable uncredited appearance from Roman Polanski as a detective.  That sequel saw a notable dip, but the series has still earned almost $850 million globally, so of course Sarkissian and New Line Cinema have an interest in bringing back the odd couple.

But Sarkissian is looking to ensure that if the franchise continues, it rebounds from that third-movie slump.  The key to doing so involves increasing the grittiness and ditching the globe-trotting (the first sequel took its heroes to Hong Kong, the second to Paris) in favor of something more novel.

“I’m trying to do it closer to how I did Rush Hour 1," the producer said. "More down to earth, more gritty, introduce two new characters and make it real the way the first one was. I personally was not happy with the third one. I thought 1 and 2 were very good. I think 3 got out of hand a little bit. It’s not a matter of just bringing them back to do another segment of that or a sequel to it by putting them in another city and having them bicker. I don’t want that. I want something new.”

As for just what the "something new" might be, Sarkissian spitballed an idea that involved an Oscar-winning The Help actress with no previous ties to Rush Hour, saying, “Maybe younger, maybe Chris is now married, maybe Jackie is married to Octavia Spencer, I don’t know. Married to Chris’s cousin, they live in Shanghai, Chris goes out to visit them. I don’t know, I want something energetic.”

In order to ensure that Rush Hour 4 provides a bit of newness, Sarkissian and company are taking inspiration from Fast Five, last year's The Fast and the Furious sequel that placed its characters in a more directly heist-y narrative.  “One of the things that surprised me and actually excited me was how they did Fast Five," he explained. "They kept the characters, they took them and they put them in a whole different world. They put them in the world of a heist movie and it worked. I think that was brilliant what they did because if you’re not careful, what happens is you just keep repeating yourself. There’s not much you can do. You’ve got to be very careful but that’s where creativity and energy and good thought and a little bit of hard work comes to try and give them something that’s in that world but a little different.”

All three previous Rush Hour movies were directed by Brett Ratner, and while its the director's signature franchise, Sarkissian's update on his involvement was surprisingly open-ended, as the producer said, “If he wants to do it he’s more than welcome to do it but he’s got to do it in the right way.”

Sarkissian is developing the sequel, but it is still very early in the process.  A screenwriter has yet to be hired, but a list of candidates has been whittled down.  “Right now we haven’t decided yet but I’m very close to making a decision. I have about four or five names that we’re roaming on right now,” Sarkissian explained.

So Rush Hour 4 could be a movie that ends up happening.  I guess the big question is whether or not Jeremy Piven will once again play the effete caricature who popped up late in Rush Hour 2: