Though it may not be a comic book universe, the improbable Fast Saga, which started out once upon a time as a simple story about illegal street racing based on a Vibe magazine article and has since transmuted into a gleefully absurd spy-fi franchise, is no stranger to the phenomenon of the comic book death.
Already, the series has seen the deaths and returns of Michelle Rodriguez’s Letty Ortiz – who was allegedly murdered by Fenix in 2009’s Fast & Furious only to return four years later in Fast & Furious 6 – and Sung Kang’s Han Lue – who was broadsided by Deckard Shaw in Fast & Furious 6 only to re-emerge in the closing seconds of the first trailer for this year’s forthcoming F9 – as well as making reference to the death of Idris Elba’s Brixton Lore – who was shot twice in the chest and once in the skull by Shaw at some point in the past, only to return cybernetically enhanced in last year’s Hobbs & Shaw spinoff.
Now, our sources – the same ones who reported six months ago that Han would be returning and that John Cena would be playing Dominic Toretto’s brother, both of which have since been confirmed – have indicated that Universal Pictures is eager to bring back yet another deceased character from beyond the grave for one last ride in the franchise’s tenth and final installment (or pair of installments, if Vin Diesel gets his way).
Another casualty of Fast & Furious 6 was Mossad operative Gisele Yashar, played by Israeli actress Gal Gadot in her pre-Wonder Woman days. And apparently, Universal wants her back for the next installment. We’ve heard no specifics yet on how she might return or what part she might have in the culmination of the franchise, but the answer may actually have been hinted at in the aforementioned spinoff featuring frenemies Luke Hobbs and Deckard Shaw.
In that story, Lore’s survival comes as the result of Eteon, a shadowy organization obsessed with forcible transhumanism and the elimination of individuals they deem weak or unworthy in order to accelerate the evolution of the human species, going so far as to engineer the Snowflake super-virus and another, even more destructive contagion, specifically for that purpose. It’s been theorized by many that Han’s return, and Gisele’s if she too comes back, will be tied to Eteon, involving a reveal that Han served as an undercover government agent just as Lore worked for Britain’s MI6 and Gisele worked for Israeli intelligence. Then again, we’ve also heard that Han’s return is as simple as the fact that he just escaped his car before it blew up, so we’ll have to wait and see how things play out.
In any case, Gadot is exponentially more in demand today than she was in 2013, three years before first playing the Themysciran demigod in Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, so whether or not Universal can accommodate her crowded schedule for Fast & Furious 10 remains to be seen.
Published: Feb 6, 2020 09:40 am