F9 Director Hopes Fast & Furious Franchise Continues After Last Movie
F9 director, Justin Lin, wants to see the Fast & Furious franchise continue after the eleventh and final movie. Arguably the godfather of the series, Lin has directed five films in the franchise. He is set to direct the final two films in the series as well, which will come out over the next few years.
The Fast & Furious franchise traces its humble beginnings back to Rob Cohen’s The Fast and The Furious in 2001. The film played with the Point Break formula and introduced LAPD cop, Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker), and hardened street thug, Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel), as two race car drivers who eventually become partners. From there, the series gradually became increasingly bombastic and grandiose with each passing installment, delivering more action and continuously highlighting the importance of family among its ever-growing cast. After 9 films and a massive overall box office haul, the Fast Saga is poised to finally cap things off with two films, debuting in 2023 and 2024.
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Screen Rant recently caught up with Justin Lin to discuss F9 and the future of the Fast & Furious franchise in a conversation timed to the F9 home entertainment release. In the interview, Lin explained that he has had numerous conversations with his actors about their characters and that there’s ample room to tell stories in a streaming landscape even after the mainline series comes to an end. Read what Lin said below:
Well, obviously things have shifted and they change. And obviously, you think about TV, it’s streaming. Streaming, there’s all these different mediums. One of the things I enjoy most about making these films is the element of talking to the actors about their characters and their journey, because our cast and our world has become so big. And I can tell you 80% of our conversation, you don’t see on screen.
Universal has already shown that the Fast & Furious franchise can exist outside of the main series to a certain extent. For example, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift was very much a standalone entity separated from the main series of films at the time of its release, and except for the introduction of Han and the brief Dom cameo in the film’s final moments, it very much exists as its own thing. Moreover, projects like Hobbs & Shaw as well as Fast & Furious Spy Racers, show how the series can spin off and tell stories that move away from Brian and Dom.
Of course, fans will have to wait and see what the future looks like for the Fast & Furious franchise after Fast & Furious 11 brings the main story to a close. Regardless of whether that’s more Hobbs & Shaw films, villain-focused spinoffs like the Cipher film reportedly in development, or smaller stories told in a streaming landscape, it’s clear that Lin wants to have a hand in whatever comes next for the series. F9 is currently available on Digital and will be available on Blu-ray and DVD on September 21.
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