The road isn’t over for Dominic Toretto and his bandwagon of loyal raiders in the Fast and Furious franchise for the movie’s lead actor cum producer Vin Diesel recently was reported quoting that the upcoming eighth Instalment, Furious 8 will be the first of a trilogy concluding the entire series.
Starring Vin Diesel as the ace-street racer and smuggler, Dominic Toretto and the late Paul Walker as the undercover cop, along with Michelle Rodriguez as Letty and Jordana Brewster as Mia, The Fast and The Furious kicked off as a high-octane, car-action based franchise way back in 2001. Since then, the franchise has had its share of ups and downs with the fourth instalment Fast and Furious almost being shelved for a theatrical release. But picking up speed eventually, the Fast and Furious saga with 7 instalments has grossed nearly $4 billion world-wide turning it into one of the most successful movie franchises in Hollywood.
Over the years with sequels driving in, joining the original cast were Tyrese Gibson as Roman, Ludacris as Tej, Suan Kang as Han and Gal Gadot as Gisele, who have developed fan-favourite characters in the franchise. However the addition of the hulking Dwayne Johnson as Hobbs brought in new vigor since the fifth instalment, Fast Five which grossed roughly $630 million. Since then, every sequel has only upped the ante in terms of visual effects for extremely insane action sequences, the antagonists too have bettered from Luke Evans to Jason Statham as Deckard Shaw that have taken things personal with Dom and his family. The franchise has gradually evolved from not being just about cars, or just about an action-packed heist movies but one centered on family and the characters within it.
However in an unfortunate turn of events, Paul Walker passed away untimely in a car accident in 2014 even before completing the filming of the last Furious 7. However with Weta Digital re-creating a digital Paul Walker using his brothers, the film was completed.
Diesel and the entire cast clearly stated that Furious 7 was an all-out tribute to Paul Walker and the movie which was previously thought of being the first of a concluding trilogy creatively exited the fan-loving character of Brian O’Conner from the series. Now with the latest updates coming in straight from Vin Diesel himself, three extravagant Fast and Furious movies are in the pipeline concluding the epic-action loaded franchise.
Furious 8 has finally also locked on The Italian Job director F. Gary Grey to helm the tent-pole with the entire star-cast returning to their characters as part of Dom’s family. Magnifying the craze, we also have Jason’s character Deckard Shaw returning as part of the upcoming trilogy as the evil brother hell-bent on destroying Dom and his family. As per earlier reports, the eighth installment would be based in New York, uncharted roads for our heroes who have been based in LA.
While Furious 8 releases in April, 2017, the casting for the movie has already been in the buzz with Eva Mendes reprising her role as Custom agent Monica Fuentes along with another addition dame Helen Mirren. Mirren’s role will mostly be against our group of heroes and will play an important role in releasing Deckard Shaw from prison.
The last Furious 7 budgeted at a mammoth sum of $ 190 million grossed over $1.5 billion becoming the fifth highest grossing movie in Hollywood. With each successive instalment, the franchise has grown bigger and popular and the upcoming trilogy sure promises us some of the best action-sequences on-screen (definitely insane and physics defying) with great casting additions (rumored Angelina Jolie too) and of course some epic street-racing as the franchise trademark. However we still would miss Paul Walker’s charm from the franchise as it edges towards the end.
From smuggling and thieving cars, to drifting in the parking space of Tokyo, to master-minding the most insane heists on the streets of Rio, the fugitives turned heroes have driven extreme action on-screen and have met their share of villains too.
Moving forward onto the streets of New York, the franchise is all about to get bigger, the bad guys turning meaner and the action unloading heavily than ever, finally burning engines on to a level never-seen before.
Some would argue that the Fast and Furious may have reached the franchise-fatigued level and that similar sort-of story-boarding format fueled with gravity defying stunts would only end up in redundant movies spawning leading to failure at the box-office going the way like franchises such as the Terminator.
The commercial success trend of Fast and Furious has for the past 14 years been northward and fast cars, street racing, death-defying stunts with cars and wheels surely isn’t fashioning out anytime soon so the trilogy may be welcomed more than criticized. However only time will tell and till then the rides not over for sure.
