It seems all is well in the family again. For now, at least.
The cast of the Fast & Furious franchise had famously suffered a split when its two biggest stars, Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson openly started feuding. This resulted in Johnson leaving the series for his own spinoff Hobbs & Shaw. But the two heavyweights have finally seemed to decide to bury the hatchet, rekindling hopes in fans of Hobbs’ return to the series that birthed the character.
In a video posted on Instagram, Johnson started off with thanking the cast and crew of Hobbs & Shaw for the movie’s massive financial success. But then unexpectedly, he mentioned Vin Diesel by name and thanked him as well:
“But also lastly, but not least. I want to thank brother Vin for your support of Hobbs & Shaw,” he said.
This part of his speech caught fans by surprise, since it’s well known that it was the friction between Johnson and Diesel that had led to the former leaving the Fast & Furious films in the first place.
But The Rock didn’t stop there, going on to say the following:
“As you know, and what a wild ride this is, and what a wild ride this has been, ten years ago when you and I spoke and you invited me into the Fast & Furious family. I’m grateful for that invite, and as you know, my goal was always — all these years — to come into the Fast & Furious world and help elevate the franchise in any way that I possibly could. If I could do that, then I’ve done my job. And now here we are ten years later, this massively successful build-out and expansion. We did it the right way, we did it the smart way, and again brother, I appreciate your support.”
“And of course, all roads lead to one thing… I’ll be seeing you soon, Toretto.””
This can only mean that after finding success on his own, Hobbs is once again ready to throw down in the same arena as Dominic Toretto and the rest of the racing family, and possibly a new antagonist, too. This is in stark contrast to the last few times Johnson and Diesel have faced off in the past on set, when The Rock had made some particularly antagonistic statements about his co-star, saying:
“Some [male co-stars] conduct themselves as stand up men and true professionals, while others don’t. The ones that don’t are too chicken sh-t to do anything about it anyway. Candy asses,” Johnson wrote in the since-deleted post. “When you watch this movie next April and it seems like I’m not acting in some of these scenes and my blood is legit boiling — you’re right.”
The question still remains, though: is this reconciliation a genuine moment between the two actors, or simply a studio-mandated patch up to milk the Fast & Furious franchise some more? Probably a bit of both, but fans won’t care as long as they get to see Hobbs and his new partner-in-crime Deckard Shaw squaring off against Dom Toretto’s gang once again, and not just on Instagram this time.
