For the first time in the franchise’s long, meandering history, The Fate of the Furious placed the Toretto crew on a collision course with a female antagonist.
Her name? Cipher, a whip-smart cyberterrorist who has secretly been pulling the strings behind all of the events featured in Universal’s petrolhead series since 2009’s Fast and Furious. On paper, it makes for quite the formidable foe, and F. Gary Gray and the Powers That Be over at Universal arguably appointed the best actress for the gig: Charlize Theron.
Even if the script was riddled with wonky dialogue and dubious plot holes, the former Mad Max: Fury Road star proved to be an exciting addition to the Fast and Furious saga, while narratively speaking Theron’s Cipher opened up a greater criminal underworld for the franchise to explore as it rounds the home stretch – remember, Fate jump-started a final mainline trilogy of action blockbusters for Universal, with plans in place for Fast and Furious 9 and Fast and Furious 10 across 2019 and 2021, respectively.
And much like writer-director F. Gary Gray, who recently hinted at the possibility of a space setting for F&F 9, it seems Charlize Theron currently has no idea whether she’ll be involved in future instalments. With Michelle Rodriguez, it’s a little different; after criticizing the franchise’s handling of its leading ladies, the series stalwart essentially delivered an ultimatum to Universal with one simple message: show some love to the women of the series, or Letty won’t return.
Here’s what Charlize Theron had to share about her own chances of returning to the Fast and Furious series beyond 2017:
I don’t know. I have no idea if they’ll have me back. Look, I love everybody at Universal. We’re going to have conversations. We’ll see where it goes.
The Fate of the Furious races onto Blu-ray and DVD today, July 11th. Next up for Charlize Theron is the release of David Leitch’s Atomic Blonde on July 28th, while a Mad Max prequel movie centering on her Imperator Furiosa is seemingly still on the cards as well.
