It does not appear Dwayne Johnson will be teaming up with Vin Diesel in Fast & Furious again.
Despite the beef between Johnson and Diesel seemingly put to bed, Diesel made a comment in June that appears to have rubbed the former WWE star the wrong way. Diesel said he used “tough love” to draw out better performances from Johnson, although DJ did not seem to agree with the assessment.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter while promoting his upcoming film Jungle Cruise, Johnson indicated that he is not returning for the final two Fast & Furious films.
“I laughed hard [at Diesel’s comments about “tough love]. I think everyone had a laugh at that. And I’ll leave it at that. And that I’ve wished them well. I wish them well on Fast 9. And I wish them the best of luck on Fast 10 and Fast 11 and the rest of the Fast & Furious movies they do that will be without me.”
The tension between Diesel and Johnson seemed to come to a head on the set of Fast 8. The two stars traded barbs online about each other’s alleged unprofessionalism, although neither decided to name names in their social media posts. Johnson said he was so angry at the “candy asses” on set that he sometimes did not have to act like he was angry because he legitimately was.
Things seemed to have died down for a while and could have been heading for a reunion in a future Fast & Furious movie, but then Diesel said in a recent interview that he had purposefully angered Johnson for the sake of the performance.
“As a producer, to say, ‘Okay, we’re going to take Dwayne Johnson, who’s associated with wrestling, and we’re going to force this cinematic world, audience members, to regard his character as someone that they don’t know’, Hobbs hits you like a ton of bricks. That’s something that I’m proud of, that aesthetic. That took a lot of work. We had to get there and sometimes, at that time, I could give a lot of tough love. Not Felliniesque, but I would do anything I’d have to do in order to get performances in anything I’m producing.”
Now, it seems to be almost certain that Johnson’s Hobbs character will not return to Fast and will instead continue on with his spin-off with Jason Statham, Hobbs & Shaw.
The ninth Fast & Furious movie released in June 2021 to a nearly $600 million box office.