There was no way the Fast & Furious franchise was ending on anyone’s terms but Vin Diesel’s. Dominic Toretto is the face and the engine of the film franchise, and in case you had any doubt, we’ve just learned that when the action movie star announced Fast Forever last June, Universal hadn’t even greenlit the project yet.
No, really. This past weekend at FuelFest in Tampa, Paul Walker’s brother, Cody Walker, who will be helping to play Brian O’Conner in the 2028 movie, said that when Vin stood on stage and effectively confirmed Fast Forever last year, the studio hadn’t signed off on it, and the cast practically learned about it on the spot.
“That caught us all by surprise,” Walker said in response to a comment about the announcement during a HotCars interview. “Standing on the stage with him and he makes the announcement, and I’m like, ‘Oh yeah?’ Now I have to field a bunch of questions and I don’t know the answers.”
“Vin goes, ‘You know, Universal hasn’t greenlit the project yet. They will, but it hasn’t been greenlit yet,'” Walker said. “I go, ‘Yeah I know.’ He goes, ‘I’m gonna go on stage and I’m gonna make the announcement and you’ll see what happens.’ So he went on the stage, he made the announcement, Universal didn’t even know the movie was coming out. Now they do and it’s greenlit.”
Bold tactic, but then you’d expect nothing less from Vin Diesel. Fast X hit theaters in 2023, and the release of the final chapter in the saga has taken longer than fans—and, we’re willing to bet, Dom himself—would’ve liked. Did he preemptively announce the movie just to get negotiations moving again? To put Universal in a position where they couldn’t say no? Who knows. You’d imagine that, as a producer and lead actor, he wouldn’t have made the move if he didn’t have full confidence in the result. Maybe the “green light” was just a formality at that point in time.
Perhaps one day, Vin Diesel will share more of a behind-the-scenes view there. What we do know is that Fast Forever is officially coming—now in March of 2028, rather than April of next year as he initially said. It will return the franchise to its roots in the LA street racing scene, and it’ll reunite Dom and Brian, with Cody’s help and a bit of computer magic.
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