Sad news for fans of the world’s biggest street racing, action heist, spy adventure, crime blockbuster franchise. The Fast and the Furious, er, saga, is set to end after its 10th outing, Fast & Furious 10 – bringing to an end an epic tale that’s chronicled the trials and tribulations of Dominic Toretto and a revolving cast of carjackers, secret agents, drug lords, assassins (and this is all from a car shtick? Blimey).
According to sources close to WGTC – the same ones who told us Kevin Hart and Ryan Reynolds would cameo in Hobbs & Shaw well before the movie released – Fast & Furious 9 and 10 will wrap up the franchise’s key plotline and end the series in a sacred Hollywood tradition that geared up 9 years ago with Harry Potter – the fabled two part-finale, or more cynically, an exercise in doubling your money. Those concerned that this will mean the end of the road for their Furious fixes needn’t fret, though, with Universal now driving their attention onto spinoffs in the vein of this year’s aforementioned and highly successful buddy bustle Hobbs & Shaw, which proved to be a big crowd-pleaser.
The transformation of The Fast and the Furious franchise from minor car chase throwback that probably should’ve stayed in 2001 into globetrotting box office giant has been faintly remarkable – Furious 7 and The Fate of the Furious sped to a combined $2.7 billion. In the process, those numbers have turned its cast members (including, but not limited to, Dwayne Johnson, Vin Diesel and Jason Statham) into an approximation of modern day action stars – a throwback in itself.
And without those irrepressibly high returns, we may never have been graced with modern classics like Skyscraper (Johnson), Rampage (Johnson), The Meg (Statham) and Hercules (Johnson). Looks like cinema was the real winner here, eh?
