First FAST 7 Footage Seen!
Universal Pictures did their presentation at CinemaCon this morning and while they focused on 2014 films they gave us a sneak peek at Fast and Furious 7, which has been delayed to 2015 after the tragic loss of Paul Walker during production.
The footage shown was short, but the main section of it was concerned with the team parachuting cars out of a cargo plane. They soar over mountains, through a coniferous forest and then wheels down, in formation, on a road and drive off. Well, everybody except Roman, who is too afraid to back his car out of the plane, and he apologizes to the team over radio as they free fall. He knows he let them down. And then Lucadris' Tej apologizes to him, hits a button and Roman's car's parachute deploys, dragging the car - and its screaming occupant - out of the hatch. It's a great bit of action that highlights the relationships between the characters.
The rest of the footage was quick cut action, swanky parties and grinning Kurt Russell. It was hard to really get a bead on anything, but it was well shot and had some nice camerawork. What about Paul Walker? There was very little of him in the footage, mostly just shots of him smiling behind the wheel. Universal's suits made absolutely no mention of the man, despite the CinemaCon opening ceremony last night taking a moment to honor his memory.
I spoke with The Rock about the Hercules trailer yesterday, and I asked him how the loss of Walker impacted the movie family, and how they would honor him in this last outing:
You know, we've all dealt with that kind of loss before, where it jolts us and it jolts our hearts. I think it also has a way of informing us. Loss like that also has a way of making us love better, love stronger, appreciate our loved ones and our family that much more, when we wake up and when we go to bed. How families deal with loss, everyone has their own process. The biggest pain I felt was for his family, his daughter. You know, we had talked about that a multitude of times, how cool it is to be a dad; there's that really special bond between a dad and his little girl. She'll always be his little girl. We talked a lot about that. So my biggest pain was for his family and for his daughter, mom and dad. But as far as for the movie family that he had, it just takes time. You just need space, and space was created. The studio took a moment, took a beat, created a lot of space too. You know, you move forward one day at a time with it. As a family, they move forward one day at a time and get through it. Then I think the movie family and the studio and the movie itself, they move forward one day at a time too, and as respectfully as you can.
It's very important for everybody involved [to give Paul a good send off]. It's not easy, and it's a challenge when you have something like this -- a beloved person. Paul, as you guys know, he was truly one of the good guys -- a great dude, who didn't take himself seriously, loved what he did, understood the business of the business. You got the real-deal, genuine guy when you got him. So it's important for everybody to creatively honor him in the best way that we possibly can.
