When you compare the relatively grounded and taut nature of The Fast and the Furious – Point Break with cars, as one comparison so aptly put – with the recently-released sequel The Fate of the Furious, you’ll begin to get a sense of just how far Universal’s franchise has come, both in terms of death-defying stunts and box office success.
The actioner formerly known as Fast 8 has been crowned king of the international box office, and with a worldwide haul of $900 million and climbing, it’ll be some time yet before F. Gary Gray’s over-the-top sequel begins to run out of gas. It’s no wonder the Powers That Be are already beginning to make headway on a spinoff movie, one that’ll seemingly be headlined by The Rock and The Stath – that’s Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham, of course. Will said offshoot find room in its ranks for the menacing Cipher? Charlize Theron’s big bad has been tipped for a role in Universal’s embryonic spinoff, but with precious few details currently available, only time will tell if those rumors hold true.
In terms of The Fate of the Furious, though, Thrillist recently posted an extensive breakdown of the film’s stunts, revealing many of them to be real. From the white-knuckle chase sequence filmed in Havana, Cuba to the grand finale in which the crew takes on a nuclear submarine (!), the production team at Universal incorporated an impressive amount of practical effects. Jack Gill, Andy Gill, and Spiro Razatos – three of the sequel’s stunt coordinators – were on hand to present an anatomy of four major action scenes, and we strongly encourage you to have a gander at the behind-the-scenes GIFs and videos to get a sense of how The Fate of the Furious was crafted.
The Fate of the Furious screeched into theaters earlier this month to a relatively mixed critical consensus. Those reviews proved to be little more than a minor speedbump on the film’s road to box office stardom though, which is now within touching distance of that all-important $1 billion milestone. Next up is surpassing the haul of James Wan’s Furious 7, which pulled in a franchise-high of $1.5 billion two years ago.
