Now that Fast & Furious 10 has been given an official release date of April 7th, 2023, audiences can start preparing themselves for the beginning of the end. There are only two movies left in the bombastic action franchise, drawing the sprawling story that kicked off 20 years ago to what promises to be an epic and suitably ludicrous conclusion.
Director Justin Lin will be pulling out all of the stops to ensure that he sends The Fast Saga out in fitting fashion, which is no tough task when you consider that the ninth installment sent the gang into space and doubled down on flipping the bird to the rules of physics, gravity and logic. He’ll also have to do it without one major fan favorite after Dwayne Johnson confirmed that his time rubbing shoulders with Dominic Toretto and the family is over.
A Hobbs & Shaw sequel remains in development, though, but Johnson clearly isn’t interested in returning to the main drag. Reading between the lines and hearing his comments during the Jungle Cruise press tour it’s easy to ascertain why, and we’re hearing from our sources – the same ones who told us Han would return in F9 long before it was confirmed – that Vin Diesel was never particularly keen on The Rock being welcomed back into the fold anyway.
Diesel finally got the elusive p.g.a. addendum he’d been chasing for a decade on F9, so the Producers Guild of America clearly determined that his contributions to the development and execution of the movie were substantial. More power behind the scenes tends to lead to greater influence, so it wouldn’t be a shock to discover that the leading man was determined to make sure his arch-nemesis sat on the sidelines for the final two chapters.
Of course, there’s no guarantees that Johnson would have even entertained the idea of playing a part in Fast & Furious 10 and 11, but you’d have to imagine Universal at least tried to nudge things in that direction.
