For a franchise that’s supposedly all about family, a major riff threatened to tear apart Universal’s lucrative Fast and Furious series back in 2017, when the Powers That Be were gearing up for The Fate of the Furious, the eighth installment in this action-fuelled juggernaut that gleefully ignores the laws of physics. And is all the better for it.
A ninth installment is officially on the way, though Universal has seemingly prioritized Hobbs and Shaw, a Fast spinoff featuring the combined star power of Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham – much to the chagrin of Tyrese Gibson, it seems.
But before we get swept up by the inner politics of Universal’s blockbuster flagship, Omega Underground is reporting that the so-far untitled Fast and Furious 9 will set the wheels in motion early next year – April 20th, 2019, to be specific, when filming on the starry sequel is expected to get underway in Atlanta, Georgia.
Before Hobbs and Shaw hit the ground running, Universal planned to shoot Fast and Furious 9 and 10 back-to-back, though it remains to be seen whether this strategy remains intact. From the outside looking in, it’s pretty clear that this lucrative franchise is beginning to diverge on to two separate tracks, which arguably makes sense now that the Toretto Saga is on the verge of its show-stopping finale.
So you can’t exactly blame Universal for wanting to future-proof a movie series that’s still able to generate huge box office revenue overseas – The Fate of the Furious, for instance, collected $1 billion from foreign markets alone for a combined total of $1.2 billion.
Will Fast and Furious 9 be able to top such a huge feat come 2020? Only time will tell, but for now, it looks certain that Universal will get the ball rolling by April 2019.