When it was revealed that John Cena was joining the cast of Fast & Furious 9, most fans probably thought he’d be playing some sort of muscle-for-hire. Not to mention Universal was likely hoping to have him fill the void of ‘professional wrestler turned actor’ left by Dwayne Johnson.
But in a somewhat surprising turn of events, F9‘s first trailer revealed that not only had Cena been cast as the main villain, but that his character Jakob is also the estranged brother of Vin Diesel’s Dominic Toretto. And while a lot of people took issue with the fact that for some reason the franchise had never bothered to mention that Dom had a brother, and one who was “a master thief, assassin and high-performance driver,” folks are still excited to have Cena in the franchise regardless.
It seems Universal feels the same, too, as they’re reportedly now looking into developing a spinoff for him. According to sources close to WGTC – the same ones who told us the actor was playing Dom’s brother months ago, and that Han was returning to the franchise – the studio wants to give the character his own vehicle following Fast & Furious 9. Apparently, the basic gist of the plot would see him and Charlize Theron’s Cipher teaming up to steal some sort of dangerous weapon that could pose a threat to the entire world.
Unfortunately, we don’t have anything else to share aside from that, and it doesn’t sound like this has been given an official green light just yet, but if Cena’s Jakob goes over well with audiences, we imagine it’ll be pushed into production fairly soon. After all, the franchise has already proven that spinoffs are lucrative ventures, with Hobbs & Shaw going over very well last year.
Besides, with Fast & Furious 10 said to be closing out the mainline series, Universal will no doubt be eager to keep the flame burning and producing spinoffs for some of the franchise’s more popular characters seems like as good a way as any to do that.
