The Fast & Furious franchise is one of the best action movie franchises currently existing in Hollywood. Along with the Mission: Impossible Franchise and James Bond, it is the only saga that still sticks to the traditional ways of action instead of the big CGI charades that the Superhero genre adopts. Over the period of 18 years and 8 films, the action franchise has created a vast pool of characters who have worked with each other in a high-stakes street-race cum heist stories.
The franchise was rebooted after 3 movies as the narrative was going off-the-rails, also it was more a collection of stand-alone movies rather than a single binding plot spread across the films, which were all united in the best way possible. Once Justin Lin-directed Fast 5 with Dwayne Johnson, the franchise entered into high-octane action that is irresistibly crazy and stylistically bang on.
Dwayne The Rock Johnson added a big chunk of action into the franchise, and he gave Vin Diesel’s Dominic Toretto the big support that was needed along with Paul Walker’s character. DJ added muscle to the team that was now ready to take on any possible threat existing in this world. This franchise has then added some really impactful actors into the mix and the biggest example of that has been Jason Statham’s, Deckard Shaw.
Shaw began as a villain in the most successful Furious 7, who came in to avenge his brother Owen Shaw. Realising that he was on the wrong side, things were made right in the Fate of The Furious where Shaw joined forces with team Hobbs to take on Dominic Toretto and the Cybercriminal Cypher played by Charlize Theron. This pitched in the idea of how amazing the chemistry between the new duo of Hobbs and Shaw is, and a spin-off was spawned from here on.
These last 8 movies have grossed over $5 Billion in total, so Universal does trust this franchise now, and is ready to try their luck with the Spin-off led by two of the best action movie stars currently working in Hollywood, Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham. In the wake of the feud between Diesel and Johnson and the fast family getting a little crowded, this was the right idea by letting Johnson, who is a huge name in Hollywood lead his own movie, and possibly a franchise.
Apparently, the positive reception that the chemistry between The Rock and Jason Statham got from the audience irked Vin Diesel so much that he forced makers to dump a scene featuring the duo. Dwayne responded to this by openly calling out Vin as “Candy Ass”.
This created tensions between the two big stars but soon they reconciled their differences and put the entire controversy behind them. But it wasn’t over as another feud cropped up, this time between Tyrese and The Rock who called him out for going in a different direction. He even blamed him for the delay of Fast 9. Here’s what he said:
“If you move forward with that #Hobbs Movie you will have purposely ignored the heart to heart moment we had in my sprinter. I don’t wanna hear from you until you remember what we talked about. I’m on your timeline cause you’re not responding to my texts messages. #FastFamily is just that a family……We don’t fly solo.”
He clarified:
“I don’t know what they’re doing. Everybody’s coming at me, like I’m hating on Dwayne for his spin-off. I’m not. I just wish he was releasing it at a different time. It’s not a conflict, but Fast & Furious is like a holiday. Fast & Furious family, the fans, the tribe, the people who have been rocking with us for 16 years… you know, pushing our release date back, it’s only happened one time in the history of Fast & Furious, when we lost our brother Paul Walker”.
He added:
“So, what’s the reason we’re pushing the release date back now? I’ve just got a problem with Dwayne… it appears that he’s being selfish. It appears that he’s so focused on furthering his own self-interest that he’s making decisions from the seat that he’s sitting in. Fast & the Furious 9 isn’t coming out until 2020. It’s f—d up.”
But here Vin Diesel defended Dwayne Johnson and explained reasons behind possible delays in Fast 9, he said:
“I know there has been a lot of speculation as to why the Fast 9 release date was pushed… but it would be unfair to say it is anyone’s fault. As we plot the course to expand the Fast & Furious universe, one must be mindful to take stock of the roads we took to get here. The pillars of authenticity, family and most importantly, our loyal fan’s perspective has been instrumental in procuring success.”
The Rock responded in a subtle way and said:
“At the end of the day, the only thing I want to do is make a great movie for the fans. I never ever get wrapped up in the sludge of the bulls*** that can be connected at times to a franchise. So I never get dragged into it. I never respond to any of that.”
But all this is now things of the past as Fast and Furious spin-off recently got the best action movie Director in the industry i.e David Leitch. Leitch brought us the infamous John Wick movie and showed us how amazingly he can handle a movie with intense action. He did the same with Atomic Blonde last year, and he has been shining this year with Deadpool 2 which has already grossed over $600 Million worldwide.
With Deadpool 2, Leitch proved that he is capable of making big-budget movies as well. With the Star power of Johnson and Statham, their reputation in the action movie genre, and the action choreography of David Leitch, we know that this Spin-off is going to do amazingly well when it comes out next year in August.
Universal is now moving forward with the casting choices of this movie as well. The Hashtag Show has the breakdowns of the characters in the ‘Hobbs and Shaw’ spinoff, and this breakdown teases the villain and the family members of the two leads in the movie. The actors have not been cast for the movie but the description of the characters could tease some perfect choices to be added in the movie. Here’s what the descriptions show:
1. The studio is looking for an actor, 49-59, to fill the role of Null who is described as a “British villain” and “mysterious international terrorist who dresses in all black.”
2. The studio is looking for an actress, 28-39, in the mold of Kate Winslet to play Deckard’s sister, Hattie, who is “an MI-6 agent.”
3. The studio is on the search for a Polynesian actress, 70-75, to play Sofia Hobbs, described as the “matriarch” of the Hobbs family and five Polynesian men, all 30-50, to portray Hobbs’s brothers: Jonah, Cal, Tim, Matt, and Alex.
This description shows that the movie will develop these characters even more and obviously bring them out of the shadow of Dominic Toretto, which may be the need of the hour now, as Hobbs and Shaw would have probably been wasted in the core franchise sequel Fast 9.
Dwayne Johnson is teasing cool stuff about the upcoming spin-off movie, he said:
“We’ve got a lot of surprises. It’s been a challenging process because I feel like my intention from day one when I first joined the cast, was to hopefully come in, have fun, and create a character that people will hopefully like and try to elevate the franchise. But in the process of elevating the franchise, I have always thought that in order for this to have real longevity and legs, we should spin out and create characters that can live on their own.”
As all the feuds are now over, fans are really looking forward to having some bad-ass entertainment. Bring it on!
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