As American as Apple Pie with a Side of Nitrous

We’ve been hearing about the next part in the The Fast and the FuriousStarted as a film about undercover policing in the illegal street-racing community, this series has grown to encompass a number of different genres and become one of the most bankable franchises in the world. saga for some time now. After the rousing success of Fast Five back in 2011 (which made almost double its predecessor, Fast & Furious), the series seemed all but unstoppable. From a franchise that was pulling in around $200 Mil for its first three entries, suddenly the films were tentpole productions. By the time of Furious 7 and The Fate of the Furious, the series saw back-to-back Billion dollar paydays at the Box Office. And while F9: The Fast Saga brought in only a “modest” $760 Mil (a bit over half of what its predecessor made), that was just over COVID and everyone assumed it was a minor bump in the road for the franchise.

It wasn’t. Fast X was originally pitched as the first in a three-part finale for the series (with further spin-offs being developed for after those films released), its Box Office was anything but stellar. It did make $714 Mil in ticket sales, which back when the films were relatively cheap to make would have been an astounding return on investment. Except Fast X cost Universal $378.8 Mil to make, a massively inflated budget due to special effects, on-location shooting, and the high cost of salaries for the massive, bloated cast. It actually made Fast X the first true Box Office Bomb the series had ever seen, and Universal suddenly got cold feet over the three-part finale (and all the planned spin-offs).

Plans were then scaled back. The three-part finale was pulled down to a two-parter, and its expected 2025 release date came and went without the film even going into production. Recently series star Vin Diesel stated that Universal has been begging him to finish the project and bring the Fast & Furious saga to a close. They’re hoping for a 2027 release date, and Diesel said he’s on board… but he has three requirements. First, he wants production to return to L.A. Second, he wants the film to get back to its roots in underground street racing. And three, he wants to bring back Paul Walker’s character, Brian O’Connor, for one last ride with the team.

We’ll break down the requests (or, you could read them as demands) from Diesel in a second, but let’s first address the long gap between these films. We’ve been getting a new Fast & Furious film every two years essentially since its inception. There was one three year gap, between third entry The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (up until Fast X the least loved of the films in the series) and fourth film Fast & Furious, but otherwise you could set your calendar to the two-year cycle of these films. While nice for fans, there’s no doubt that some of the reason why the ninth and tenth films in this series (and, seriously, it’s mind boggling we got to ten-plus films for the franchise) didn’t do as well as previous entries was because of franchise burnout. Ten films in twenty-two years is a lot. Only James BondThe world's most famous secret agent, James Bond has starred not only in dozens of books but also one of the most famous, and certainly the longest running, film franchises of all time., at its peak, managed more, and with production times getting longer and longer between those films, we can clearly see the effects of franchise fatigue all too well.

I don’t think the break between films ten and eleven is a bad thing for the Fast & Furious series. Whether part eleven actually ends up being a true finale (I suppose we’ll just have to see how well that film does, if and when it ever comes out), there’s no doubt that the break is at least giving fans time to miss the franchise and get ready for whatever comes next. Sometimes time away can make for a better, and more lucrative, film, so long as the break doesn’t get too long such that people begin to stop caring about a franchise altogether. James Bond went six years between Spectre and No Time to Die, and that feels like just about the longest a series should wait before it starts to become a dead franchise. Four years isn’t really that bad.

With that said, there are some concerns with the requests / demands that Diesel has made. Let’s get the biggest out of the way first: bringing Brian O’Connor back seems like a really big problem all because Paul Walker is dead. He died during the filming of Furious 7, and that film gave him a sweet, fitting ending. Technically Brian O’Connor is still alive in the series, having only retired from the life of street crime and international espionage, but the series hasn’t featured him since part seven. The most it’s done is make reference to him being “elsewhere” or having him “take care of the kids” off screen. The last film even did a back-of-the-actor “fake shemp” for him, but Brian has remained in hard retirement mode since.

And that makes sense. While it was nice that the producers finished his role with a blend of real actors (Paul Walker’s two brothers acting as stand-in) along with CGI reconstruction of his face, it was also good that the series kept Brian on the sidelines ever since. Considering how poorly received CGI resurrection of actors has been in the past (see the resurrection of Peter Cushing as Grand Moff Tarkin in Rogue One) not doing that for Brian felt wise. Not only is it expensive but it also feels pretty ghoulish. I understand that Diesel misses his friend and wants to give him one last adventure before the series goes off to a farm up state, but this doesn’t really seem like a good idea at all. Leaving the character retired is less offensive than bringing him back via CGI (or just recasting him).

Plus, the digital resurrection of a character can’t be cheap. If we’re looking at a film that isn’t likely to clear $750 Mil (as the previous two tiles in the series failed to do) is it really wise to spend a ton of money digitally recreating an actor when mostly what it will do is inflate the budget for an effect most people don’t want to see? Diesel’s wishes notwithstanding, this feels like a terrible idea from an angle. Better to just carry on without Walker’s character and try to bring the series to a close on its own terms.

As for the other two aspects of Diesel’s request – bringing the franchise back to L.A. and making it more about street racing – it’s hard to think how this could truly be possible. Firstly, the franchise has long since abandoned any sense of street-level storytelling. The last five adventures (plus spin-off Hobbs & Shaw) all dealt with international espionage and mega-powerful super-villains. The tenth film even ended on a cliffhanger with the villain, Dante Reyes (Jason Mamoa), essentially putting every character in a life-or-death scenario from which they couldn’t escape. How do you go from that to back on the streets of L.A. doing drag racing and living life a quarter mile at a time. It doesn’t feel possible, not from a storytelling perspective.

Plus, getting back to that villain: Reyes is not a street level villain. Hell, the tenth film features a street racing scene and it really felt shoehorned on. Trying to take that villain and forcing him into a street-level adventure doesn’t seem like something that could work. It’s mixing two flavors that don’t go together and expecting a result other than what is obvious. Sure, maybe they could do it, but it likely means abandoning the plotline that carried in from the previous film, abandoning the villain, or retconning everything. None of those solutions seem workable.

Of course, if Diesel just means he wants to see a street racing scene or two included in the film, then that doesn’t feel any different from any of the previous films in the franchise. There’s always at least one street-level scene included in every film, so I’m not actually certain what Diesel is asking for there. Either he wants the moon and the stars as he remakes the franchise into something else, or he’s barely asking for anything at all. It doesn’t seem hard to shoehorn in some L.A. sets and one street racing scene. The big ask is getting back Brian O’Connor, and if Universal is looking to pare back costs for the franchise to get it back in the black for the finale, it may just be a bridge too far.

So is Diesel trying to take the series? That’s doubtful. This is his biggest series, and the one he talks about the most. He’s a massive, Triple-A star because of the Fast & Furious franchise. It made him who he is. He probably wants to see it go out on his terms and he wants to do right by it and the fans. Just… maybe he should rethink all of this. Giving the franchise time to be missed has been a good move (even if it was possibly unintentional). Now they just have to buckle down and do it right so the final film is actually what people want to see (and not a bloated mess like Fast X).

Oh, and please just make it a real finale. I don’t think anyone is hoping for more films after this. At least not until another really long break for the franchise so that everyone can get nostalgic about it all over again. The films have had a good run. It feels like one more before everyone walks away is really the right call.