Brett Ratner wants to relaunch the development of a Hugh Hefner biopic

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Regardless of the several duds that Brett Ratner has released over the past few years, I'll always be thankful to the man for those first two RUSH HOUR films. While I agree that they're offensive in more ways than one, my good friend Brendan and I have found both of those East- meets-West action romps to be quite quotable, with the lines "Cheap suits? How cheap? Cheap as hell?" being among the best of them.

This afternoon, Variety is reporting that Brett Ratner is re-launching the development of a Hugh Hefner biopic venture through his RatPac Entertainment label, which has already optioned the life rights of the Playboy magazine founder and social icon. The unnamed project is set to be a co-production between Ratpac Entertainment and Playboy/Alta Loma Entertainment. Ratner will produce alongside John Cheng and Hefner will act as an executive producer in conjunction with Dick Rosenzweig and Peter Jaysen.

Interestingly enough. Ratner was attached to direct a Hefner film a decade ago in a partnership with Imagine Entertainment.

In commenting on the prospect of his life being turned into a feature-lenth film, Hefner latterly stated, “In recent years there has been plenty of interest and much conversation about doing a feature film based on my life. I have always believed that when the timing was truly right, the perfect creative partners would come together for this project. I believe we’ve found those partners in Brett Ratner and RatPac Entertainment. I’m very much looking forward to this collaboration.” 

Then, in sharing his thoughts about the proposed project, Ratner said, “Hugh Hefner started a sexual revolution from behind the walls of his legendary mansion by using the pages of Playboy Magazine an his own infamous lifestyle to build a global empire that included publishing, clubs, casinos and television networks.”

Seeing as this project is still in the planning stages, it could be some time before we hear of anymore news of its development. In the meantime, there are a ton of Ratner-related projects you can watch including the PRISON BREAK: SEQUEL which aired its first episode on Fox this past April 4th.