The Fast and Furious fever is still running wild as Universal and exec producer Vin Diesel revealing exclusively to Variety that plans are afoot to take the storyline further with spin-offs around the major characters of the franchise, and kicking off the series could very well be Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson’s character of the human wrecking machine Hobbs.
“We’ve written out story lines for various characters,” said Diesel. “We’ve been playing with it for a long time. It’s a very rich property and we’re committed to treating it with a lot of class.”
The actor did not say which characters would get their own standalone films, but in the past, Dwayne Johnson has hinted that he’d like to see his character, Diplomatic Security Service agent Luke Hobbs, branch out into independent adventures.
Universal Pictures chairman Donna Langley confirmed that talks were taking place about ways to broaden the series’ reach. “We’re certainly in conversations about how we can expand the franchise now,” said Langley. “It’s an ensemble cast and there’s room to bring characters in and out.”
For now, however, the focus remains on creating three more Fast and Furious sequels. Both Diesel and Universal promise that the upcoming films will be different in tone from the adventures that preceded them. Guess bringing F. Gary Gray, the director of Straight Outta Compton, on board to guide the eighth film in the series made sense.
“We have a director who is going to bring the darkness out and bring out the character,” said Diesel, who promises that the film will be similar to his previous collaboration with the director, the gritty 2003 thriller A Man Apart.
The Fast and Furious franchise is associated with gravity-defying car races, but the studio is now planning to shift the emphasis in the next installment to accompany the crazy stunts with better storylines as well.
“You can’t keep having every movie have bigger and bigger stunts forever and ever and ever,” said Jeff Shell, chairman of Universal Filmed Entertainment Group. “Eventually you have to really focus on the story. We’ll still have big stunts but bringing in this amazing storyteller is going to be great.”
Well we will have to wait till 2017 to see whether this strategy pays off for both Universal and Vin Diesel to replicate the success of the last outing Furious 7, which went onto rev up $1.5 billion at the global box-office.
