Fast Forever sure is taking forever. The 11th, and final, film in the mainline Fast and Furious franchise was expected to come right on the heels of the 2023 film Fast X. But, for several reasons, that didn’t happen, and now it’s been three years and counting without a frame of footage being shot. (Star Vin Diesel did shoot a World Cup commercial that looked like it was Fast Forever, but it was not Fast Forever.)
So what’s going on? Well, in Los Angeles Monday night, Universal threw a big 25th anniversary party for The Fast and the Furious ahead of its theatrical re-release this weekend. Diesel was there, of course, along with co-stars such as Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, and others. Speaking to Variety on the red carpet, Diesel said he’s hoping to start filming Fast Forever in December.
“We start shooting in December, if I can make good on the request from the studio,” Diesel said. “I’m in a good place, though. I had to go through four sets of writers, four years of development, to get to something that I felt would be worthy of a finale. And when I read the script a couple of weeks ago, [I cried].”
Diesel has mentioned crying over the script before, but this is the first time fans are hearing about the four different sets of writers who tackled the subject. That surely explains the delay, but also feels very odd. Did the team developing Fast X not have an idea of what would happen next when they killed John Cena’s character and put Vin Diesel’s Dom and his son at the bottom of an exploding dam? Was there not a plan? How did it take four different sets of writers to flesh out a story that clearly should have been in place already?
We don’t know. However, we’d like to think that there was a plan, but after the film’s release, Diesel and the team just decided to make it even better. And, if that’s the case, apparently they succeeded. “I’m going to tell you something personal,” Diesel said to fans in the theater. “It was after four different writers, four years of development, and after I read the script, halfway through, one tear. By the end of the script that we crafted and worked so hard to make right for you after four years, I was crying. I couldn’t hold it back, and I had to tell everyone. And my sister said, ‘No more crying, bro.’ So I just want to say that sometimes, even the toughest guys in the world need to cry.”
I’ll cry if this movie actually A) ends up happening on schedule and B) comes halfway to delivering what it has promised.
Fast Forever, directed by Louis Leterrier, is scheduled for release on March 17, 2028.
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