Time’s Up, the organization founded by Hollywood celebrities in the wake of the Me Too movement and the sexual harassment allegations against Harvey Weinstein in 2017, slammed Rush Hour director Brett Ratner‘s attempt at making a comeback. In November 2017, Olivia Munn and seven other women accused Ratner of sexual harassment and misconduct, leading Warner Bros. to stop working with him. However, Deadline reported on Friday that his RatPac Entertainment is developing a movie about Milli Vanilli, which Ratner will direct.
“TIME’S UP was born out of the national reckoning on workplace sexual harassment,” Tina Tchen, president and CEO of the Time’s Up Foundation, said in a statement to Variety Sunday. “Our movement is a product of countless courageous acts by many survivors, including those who spoke out about what they endured at the hands of Brett Ratner.” Tchen said the X-Men: The Last Stand director never offered apologies and only filed lawsuits against the women who accused him.
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“Not only did Ratner never acknowledge or apologize for the harm he caused, but he also filed lawsuits in an attempt to silence the voices of survivors who came forward – a tactic right out of the predator’s playbook,” Tchen continued. “You don’t get to go away for a couple years and then resurface and act like nothing happened. We have not – and will not – forget. And Millennium Media shouldn’t either. There should be no comeback. #wewontforgetbrett.”
The Milli Vanilli project will be produced by Millennium Media and RatPac Entertainment. Ratner has been working on the project for over a decade and will include the group’s songs. It will be written by Jeff Nathanson, who also worked on Rush Hour. Milli Vanilli was a successful pop duo made up of Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus. However, it was later discovered that they never actually sang the vocals on their releases, resulting in them giving up their Grammy Award for Best New Artist. They attempted a comeback in 1998, but Pilatus died from a drug overdose and the album was never released.
Ratner has been a controversial Hollywood figure going back to 2011 when he was forced to resign from producing the 84th Academy Awards because of homophobic comments. In November 2017, Munn and actress Natasha Henstridge accused Ratner of sexual harassment. Elliot Page also accused him of sexual harassment and outing him as gay in 2006 in front of several onlookers. Warner Bros. immediately cut ties with Ratner in 2017 and did not renew a co-producing deal with him in April 2018. Ratner denied all allegations.
