Even if Hobbs & Shaw hadn’t come slapped with the Fast & Furious branding as the franchise’s first spinoff, it would have been guaranteed to do big business at the box office simply based on the two leads and basic premise alone.
You’ve got the world’s biggest movie star Dwayne Johnson operating firmly within his wheelhouse as a charismatic force of nature, partnered up with the always-reliable Jason Statham in a buddy adventure that pairs up two jacked bald dudes who don’t get along, forcing them to throw plenty of barbs in each other’s direction before they eventually put their differences aside to kick every ass under the sun.
Not only that, but former stunt choreographer turned action movie maestro David Leitch was calling the shots having cut his teeth on John Wick, Atomic Blonde and Deadpool 2, so the quality of the set pieces was never going to be in doubt. There was literally no way Hobbs & Shaw was going to be anything other than a massive hit, then, and it certainly delivered in that regard after hauling in over $750 million at the box office and scoring mostly favorable reviews.
A sequel is now in the works, though it won’t be here for a while yet given the hectic schedules of everyone involved, and the original movie has wound up dominating the Netflix most-watched list for roughly a week now. Indeed, Hobbs & Shaw has been hovering around the Top 20 for a good chunk of the month already, proving that action-packed blockbusters are never going to go out of fashion either on the big screen or streaming, especially when they boast such an experienced and impeccably talented roster of veterans both in front of and behind the camera.
