Fast & Furious 6 Director Says He Clashed With Universal Over The Movie’s Title

One of the things fans love so much about the Fast & Furious franchise is the completely haphazard way the action blockbusters have been named, something that’s generated plenty of talking points and no shortage of memes over the course of the last decade as the series continues to cement itself as patently absurd and ludicrously entertaining slices of popcorn escapism.

The Fast and the Furious is a straightforward enough title, but 2 Fast 2 Furious certainly is not. A simple subtitle was added to Tokyo Drift, before the soft reboot opted for just Fast & Furious. Parts five and six were initially designated as Fast Five and Furious 6, but in some territories the latter was released as either plain old Fast & Furious 5, or even Fast & Furious 5: Rio Heist.

Not content with stoking the flames of confusion, the sixth chapter was officially known across the world as Fast & Furious 6, but the title card on the big screen called it Furious 6. If that still wasn’t enough, after James Wan stepped in for Justin Lin behind the camera, Paul Walker’s swansong was dubbed Furious 7, Furious Seven or Fast & Furious 7, entirely dependent on what country you were in.

It’s a total mindf*ck to say the least, but in a new interview franchise veteran Lin revealed that he had some clashes with Universal’s marketing team when it came to officially branding the sixth film in The Fast Saga.

“If you watch Fast 6, it’s called Fast & Furious 6, but when you watch the movie, it’s called Furious 6. So this is something that happens, and obviously I have a great time, I have a great relationship with the studio, but I was like, ‘Man, it was called Fast Five so you can have Furious 6. That was always by design’. And somehow, for some reason, it became Fast & Furious 6. So there was some very spirited conversations about titles, but I think we always have fun in how we choose to label each new chapter.”

Things didn’t get any less convoluted when F. Gary Gray’s The Fate of the Furious arrived in 2017, while the current box office champion goes by Fast & Furious 9, F9: The Fast Saga or the minimalistic F9. It’s enough to drive someone mad, but there’s been some online traction behind the idea of calling the next movie Fast 10 Your Seat Belts, which is something that absolutely must be done.