Here Comes The FAST & FURIVERSE
The only shocking thing about a Fast & Furious shared universe is that it has taken this long to happen. The massively successful series will soon be spinning off with prequels and side stories, giving beloved characters their own spotlight. More Han anyone?
Talking to Variety Vin Diesel, the paterfamilias of the nitro-injected series, says:
“We’ve written out story lines for various characters... We’ve been playing with it for a long time. It’s a very rich property and we’re committed to treating it with a lot of class.”
Universal's Donna Langley backs up Diesel:
“We’re certainly in conversations about how we can expand the franchise now...It’s an ensemble cast and there’s room to bring characters in and out.”
It's also one of Universal's most profitable properties, and it has the chance to go in a lot of directions, at very different budget levels. A crime-oriented film about Han would be very different from an action picture about Hobbs. And you know they have a Hobbs movie on tap.
As for the coming Fast 8, Universal's Jeff Shell says they wont keep pushing the action boundaries forever:
“You can’t keep having every movie have bigger and bigger stunts forever and ever and ever. Eventually you have to really focus on the story. We’ll still have big stunts but bringing in this amazing storyteller is going to be great.”
That's such a weirdly backhanded thing to say, basically throwing the franchise under the bus for having poor stories (which is hard to argue, to be fair). Diesel says that the next film will be darker and grittier, which could go with a toned-down stunt show. Diesel claims that F Gary Gray is really going to focus on the characters.
We'll see! How dark and gritty do we want a Fast & Furious film to be? I don't mind the spin-offs having their own diverse tones, but the main vehicle should be running on the usual fuel of fun and family, don't you think?
Of course all of this could be a long way off, like Universal's supposed Monsters shared universe.
