Brett Ratner & Friends at The Forge in Miami Beach

James Caan and Brett Ratner at the Forge
James Caan and Brett Ratner at the Forge

While critics keep asking themselves… “Why do people like Brett Ratner’s movies?”… Miami Beach’s favorite son continues to rake in the cash each time he assumes the director’s chair with a string of successful movies such as Rush Hour 1 & 2, The Family Man and Red Dragon.

Consider the numbers: Rush Hour 1 took in $244 million worldwide. Rush Hour 2 grossed a cool $390 million worldwide. But the best affirmation of popularity comes with the very existence of Ratner’s new Rush Hour 3 itself, because Hollywood bean-counters simply do not fund a third sequel without the expectation of significant box-office returns.

So, it’s with that track-record of success that Brett Ratner spent the opening night of Rush Hour 3 partying with friends and admirers at The Forge in Maimi Beach last Wednesday night.

The Forge is itself a throwback to pre-war Hollywood, coming in somewhere between a Vegas nightclub and Norma Desmond’s Sunset Boulevard mansion—in other words the perfect setting for local-boy-makes-good Ratner to celebrate the opening of his new movie.

On hand were James Caan, director Michael Bay, Lennox Lewis, Nancy and Al Malnik, Shareef Malnik, Michael Capponi and several hundred other partiers at the tightly controlled affair.

It’s rumored that Brett Ratner’s next movie will be a bio-flic chronicling the career of Playboy’s Hugh Hefner, a subject that notorious party-boy Brett should be very familiar with.