Not only does Hollywood continue to churn out sequels, remakes, reboots and re-imaginings of blockbuster franchises in order to wring every last penny out of an established and lucrative brand, but in recent years the trend of spinning these properties off into TV shows has also started gathering steam.
Unsurprisingly, given their status as the single biggest entity in today’s popular culture, Disney are at the forefront of the movement, developing a huge number of small screen projects for their highest-profile brands like Star Wars and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, it isn’t just mega-budget blockbusters that are being repurposed for the small screen, with the likes of the Bourne-adjacent Treadstone recently hitting screens and The Continental currently in the works in an effort to expand the world established in John Wick.
One franchise that has defied all expectations to become one of the biggest and most popular on the planet is The Fast and the Furious, with the ninth installment currently shooting, and spinoff Hobbs & Shaw earning over $750 million at the box office this summer. There’s been speculation in the past that the Fast family would be making their way to television in some capacity, and in a recent interview, Hobbs & Shaw director David Leitch admitted that it could be a real possibility.
“I think they should look into it. Again, there’s such a great number of characters in the Fast universe. But now with Hobbs & Shaw, could you imagine Madame M., Eiza Gonzalez’s character, having a TV show with her group of female assassins? It would be amazing.”
As the man behind the first Fast & Furious spinoff, as well as co-directing John Wick and producing the upcoming TV spinoff set in New York’s assassin underworld, Leitch certainly knows a thing or two about putting a fresh spin on an action franchise. Whether or not we ever get a show set in the world made famous by Dominic Toretto and his crew is up for debate, but Universal would certainly be keen to keep the cash rolling in on their most bankable asset.
