Latest news with #FastAndFurious
Khaleej Times
an hour ago
- Entertainment
- Khaleej Times
Vin Diesel promises street racing and return of Paul Walker's character for 'Fast and Furious 11'
Actor Vin Diesel has officially confirmed that the final installment of the Fast & Furious franchise, tentatively titled Fast 11, is set to hit theatres in April 2027. Appearing at Fuel Fest, a car culture and motorsports event in Pomona, California, Diesel made a surprise appearance alongside franchise stars Tyrese Gibson and Cody Walker (brother of the late Paul Walker). According to Variety, Diesel, addressing an electrified crowd, dropped major hints about the future—and legacy—of the popular series that began in 2001. 'The studio said to me, 'Vin, can we please have the finale of 'Fast and Furious' [in] April 2027?'' Diesel shared. 'I said, 'Under three conditions.'' Those conditions? A return to the roots that made Fast a global phenomenon. 'First, is to bring the franchise back to Los Angeles. The second thing was to return to the car culture, to the street racing. The third thing was reuniting Dom and Brian O'Conner,' Diesel said. Diesel's final condition—the reunion of Dominic Toretto and Brian O'Conner—is as tantalising as it is mysterious. Paul Walker, who played Brian, tragically died in a car accident in 2013 at the age of 40, midway through filming Furious 7. The filmmakers used CGI and his brothers as body doubles to complete the film, sending off Brian with an emotional, symbolic farewell. Whether Fast 11 will feature a fully digital version of Brian, previously unseen footage, or a brief tribute-style appearance remains unclear. However, Diesel's comment seems to confirm that Brian's presence—one way or another—will play a role in the franchise's swan song. Released in May 2023, Fast X brought in over $700 million globally, though it faced criticism for its bloated $340 million budget. Marketed as the first of a two-part saga, it ended on a cliffhanger with Jason Momoa's flamboyant villain Dante Reyes threatening Toretto and his crew. With such a large time gap between Fast X and Fast 11, it remains to be seen whether the upcoming film will continue from where Fast X left off or take a more standalone approach focused on legacy and nostalgia. Fans of the franchise's earlier films will no doubt be thrilled at the promise of returning to L.A. and the underground street racing roots that once defined The Fast and the Furious. Over the years, the franchise morphed into globe-trotting spy thrillers with flying cars and gravity-defying stunts. A shift back to asphalt and attitude may be just what fans—and the series—need.
News.com.au
4 hours ago
- Entertainment
- News.com.au
Vin Diesel shows off his new physique as he poses for pictures with his celeb pals
Vin Diesel has been photographed looking noticeably less buff while posing with some of his celebrity pals. Diesel, best known for his role in the Fast and Furious franchise, flashed a smile as he hugged his former co-star, Charlize Theron while attending her Africa Outreach Project event in Los Angeles at the weekend. Wearing a black vest top and dark sunglasses, Diesel showed off a larger frame as he enjoyed the event with his famous pals. His latest public appearance comes after a fellow actor took a stab at Diesel during an interview earlier this year. Actor Paul Walter Hauser launched a surprising spray on Vin Diesel in a recent interview, recoiling when the interviewer jokingly compared him to the action star. Recent Golden Globe winner Hauser was sitting down with outlet CinemaBlend in a press junket for his latest film, Inside Out 2, in which he voices the character 'Embarrassment.' But he had no embarrassment hitting back when the interviewer joked to Hauser that his character's arc in the animated film means 'you're like Vin Diesel now.' 'Please don't say that,' he shot back, explaining: 'I like to think I am on time and approachable.' Hauser's Inside Out 2 co-star Lewis Black reacted with shock as he explained his surprise diss. 'I love people, but when I hear stories about Hollywood actors who get paid really well and mistreat people … I out them constantly, and it's a blast.' Meanwhile, on Saturday night, Diesel joined his Fast and Furious co-stars Tyrese Gibson and Cody Walker at Fuel Fest in California. During his brief appearance, Diesel told a crowd of fans what they can expect to see in the final Fast and Furious film. He also confirmed that it's likely to be released sometime in 2027 after numerous delays. 'The studio said to me, 'Vin, can we please have the finale of 'Fast and Furious' [in] April 2027?'' Diesel said. 'I said, 'Under three conditions.' First, is to bring the franchise back to L.A.! The second thing was to return to the car culture, to the street racing! The third thing was reuniting Dom and Brian O'Conner.'
Daily Mail
11 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Vin Diesel shocks as he announces VERY surprising return for final Fast & Furious film
Vin Diesel made quite the shocking announcement about the final Fast & Furious film over the weekend. The 57-year-old actor took the stage at Fuel Fest in Pomona, California on Saturday night, where he offered an update on Fast X Part 2. He was wearing a shirt that read, 'Fast X Part 2 Los Angeles Production 2025' while revealing his three demands to Universal Pictures for the final film. 'The studio said to me, "Vin, can we please have the finale of Fast and Furious [in] April 2027?"' Diesel said, confirming the release date. He continued, 'I said, "Under three conditions." First, is to bring the franchise back to L.A.! The second thing was to return to the car culture, to the street racing!' Diesel concluded, 'The third thing was reuniting Dom and Brian O'Conner,' referring to the late Paul Walker 's beloved character. Diesel was joined on stage by his co-star Tyrese Gibson, who shared a video of the fans screaming when he mentioned Dom and Brian O'Conner. The video shows Diesel adding, 'That is what you're gonna get in the finale! Love you!' he concluded, as the video showed Diesel giving Paul's mother Cheryl a hug. Gibson added, 'I've got love for every other city and every other country, but this Fast & Furious s**t started right here in L.A.' The first film - 2001's The Fast and the Furious - was indeed set in Los Angeles, following Walker's Brian O'Conner as an undercover LAPD cop sent to infiltrate Dominic Toretto (Diesel) and his crew. Walker was still filming 2015's Furious 7 when he died tragically in a car accident in November 2013. Production was halted for several months as the filmmakers tried to figure out how to deal with the Brian O'Connor character. When filming resumed, they decided to 'retire' the character, having him drive off into the sunset, leaving his criminal crew behind to spend more time with his family, set to the iconic Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth song See You Again for a poignant farewell. They used the late actor's brothers Cody and Caleb as stand-ins and digitally inserted the late actor's face on top of the brothers for the new shots. Brian O'Conner has never been seen in any of the subsequent Fast & Furious films, though he has been mentioned and he's still alive and well in the film universe. That will seemingly change in Fast X Part 2, with Diesel promising fans that they will in fact see Brian O'Conner again. It seems likely that they could either use unseen footage of Walker from the previous films or bring back Cody and Caleb Walker as stand-ins with Walker's face digitally added like they did on Furious 7. The Fast & Furious film franchise has grossed a whopping $7.2 billion at the global box office since its launch in 2001.
Yahoo
12 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Vin Diesel says Fast & Furious finale contingent on Paul Walker's resurrection
Two years after the release and subsequent shrug of Fast X, part one of a two-part still-unfinished series finale, Vin Diesel's quarter-century-old Fast & Furious franchise is running on fumes. In one of those 'Jesus, maybe we should pump the brakes on these budgets' situations, Fast X only grossed $714 million but barely turned a profit, Variety reported in 2023. Since then, Diesel has seemingly been unable to back his final bad boy out of the garage. Now we know what the holdup is: Diesel wants to raise the dead. At last night's gear-head focused Fuel Festival in Los Angeles, Diesel addressed the elephant in the fairground: Where was the Fast X 2? According to Diesel, the studio is begging him to complete this movie by April 2027, two years later than initially announced. However, displaying his power over the Universal brass, Diesel revealed some non-negotiables. 'Under three conditions,' he said. 'To bring the franchise back to LA. The second thing was to return to the car culture, to the street racing. The third thing was reuniting Dom and Brian O'Connor.' The only problem, of course, is that the actor who played Brian O'Connor, Paul Walker, died in 2013. Though O'Connor has appeared in the series since Paul Walker's death—in the 'See You Again' soundtracked coda of Furious 7 and via car F9—these were minimal and tasteful (for the franchise) tributes. To be clear, in canon, O'Connor is not dead; he's retired. However, based on his enthusiasm, it sounds like Diesel wants more of Brian. We can only presume that what he's hinting at is bringing the character back via the same GCGI (Ghoulish Computer Generated Imagery) that made Rogue One, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, and Alien Romulus so unpleasant, a mix of deep-fake technology and AI approximation that result in a Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within-level of verisimilitude. And also, a reminder that nothing, not even the death of a friend or colleague or screen icon, is more important than the continued adventures of Grand Moff Tarkin. However, Diesel has been playing his own P.R. game with the Fast movies for years, and Fast X in particular. After the franchise's actual creative powerhouse, the director who could turn Diesel's sleeveless fantasies into blockbuster reality, Justin Lin, exited the series because, well, life's too short, the series slotted in journeyman action director Louis Leterrier. The result was an expensive movie that underperformed, slamming the brakes on the billion-dollar series and leaving it to Diesel to periodically remind fans that another Fast film was still in the works. He's also in the midst of a sexual assault lawsuit from a former assistant that, at least on his Instagram, he doesn't appear to be bothered by. We suppose we'll pencil in Fast X-2 for April 2027, but that all depends on Universal's interest in the reunion of Dom and his beloved Buster. We're not even going to ask what's going on with Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs And Reyes because, well, life's too short and we live ours a quarter mile at a time. [via The Drive] More from A.V. Club What's on TV this week—Sinners, Nautilus, Heads Of State 3 new songs and 3 new albums to check out this weekend Making The Office without Steve Carell was as hard as watching it, apparently
Yahoo
14 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Vin Diesel says Paul Walker's Brian O'Conner could return in 'Fast & Furious 11'
Vin Diesel says the planned finale of the long-running "Fast & Furious" franchise will come with an unexpected passenger. Speaking at Fuel Fest, an automotive event in Pomona over the weekend, Diesel told fans that the final 'Fast & Furious' film will bring back one of the series' most beloved characters: Paul Walker's Brian O'Conner. The longtime on-screen partner to Diesel's Dominic Toretto, O'Conner last appeared in 2015's "Furious 7," which was completed after Walker's death in a car accident in 2013 at age 40. The franchise — known for its blend of street racing, elaborate heists and outsized action — has grown into one of the most successful of all time, with more than $7 billion at the global box office. "Just yesterday I was with Universal Studios," Diesel said in a video from the event. "The studio said to me, 'Vin, can we please have the finale of 'Fast & Furious' [in] April 2027?' I said, 'Under three conditions' — because I've been listening to my fanbase." Read more: Brad Pitt and 'F1 The Movie' zoom to $55.6 million in Apple's biggest box office debut Those conditions, he said, were to bring the franchise back to L.A., return to its street-racing roots and reunite Dom and Brian. "That is what you're going to get in the finale," Diesel promised. How the production might accomplish that reunion remains unclear. When Walker died during the making of "Furious 7," the filmmakers turned to a mix of archived footage, digital effects and performances by Walker's brothers, Caleb and Cody, who served as stand-ins for unfinished scenes. Artists at Weta Digital created more than 300 visual-effects shots to map Walker's likeness onto his brothers' bodies, often piecing together dialogue from existing recordings. The film's farewell — showing Brian and Dom driving side by side before splitting onto separate roads — became one of the franchise's most memorable and emotional moments, widely seen as a tribute to Walker's legacy. A return for Brian O'Conner would join a growing list of posthumous digital performances in major franchises — a practice that continues to stir debate over where the line should be drawn. In 2016's "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story," Peter Cushing's Grand Moff Tarkin was recreated through a mix of motion capture, CGI and archival material, decades after Cushing's death. In 2019, "The Rise of Skywalker" relied on previously unused footage and digital stitching to return Carrie Fisher's Leia to the screen three years after the actress' passing. And in last year's "Alien: Romulus," the late Ian Holm's likeness was recreated as an android using AI and digital effects, with the approval of his estate — a choice that sparked controversy and led to more practical effects being used in the film's home release. Sign up for Indie Focus, a weekly newsletter about movies and what's going on in the wild world of cinema. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
