It’s been more than two decades since Dom, Letty, Brian, Mia and the rest of the gang first brought the automobile-centered action franchise to life with The Fast & The Furious. This summer, Michelle Rodriguez, Vin Diesel And more of the family will return for the 10th outing in the franchise’s history. We already know quite a bit about the upcoming 10th Fast flick, but at CinemaCon 2023 the Fast X cast took the stage for maybe the second-to-last time to share memories and milestones from their journey.
Specifically, Michelle Rodriguez got candid about what it meant for F9 to be one of the first movies to bring audiences back to theaters following the pandemic. She also noted that personally one of the big reasons she’s felt the movies have been so important have been because they have given opportunities to myriad actors of color in big budget roles.
We were so proud to be a big part of getting the movie industry back on its feet and giving the fans a good reminder of how entertaining and necessary… spectacle like Fast is. On a personal note, we’re so proud that these films have created great roles for so many actors of color. Not so long ago, people who looked like us didn’t appear in major film franchises and none of us would be hear if it weren’t for the brave, talented men and women who paved the way for all of us, including the legendary Rita Morena, who joins us in Fast X.
The diversity of characters in the franchise is multi-faceted. The past 10 movies have increasingly included more women in hero and villain roles, and Jordana Brewster chimed in onstage to note she’s particularly proud the movies have “attracted” a slew of Academy Award winners.
And we’re all so proud that these films have attracted now four Oscar-winning women. Helen, Charlize, as Michelle just said Rita, and also in this film the incredible Brie Larson. There’s not one single franchise ever that can claim that.
Finally, to much fanfare, Vin Diesel was brought onstage to talk about coming to CinemaCon for the first time in 10 years. He talked about keeping the “family” together during that whole time, and touched on the pride he had for the directors of the franchise, several of whom can name a Fast movie as the most successful of their career.
This is our family. The audience is our family. And as we were building toward this achievement we were attracting actors who each brought their own magic to the saga. I’m proud to say that for exactly two decades the Fast films have been the most successful films of every one of our director's careers. Again that’s only because of you.
I had to actually fact check this because noted Fast family director James Wan made well over a billion dollars on his DC movie Aquaman, joining an exclusive club, but as it turns out Furious 7 did make more money globally. Aquaman ultimately pulled in $1,148,528,393 while the 7th installment in the franchise brought in a whopping $1.5 billion and some change.
Ludacris also reminded us yesterday that we are “officially less than a month away” from the release of Fast X and as we’re getting closer to the end of the saga, it’s clear there’s a lot of pride the cast is taking with them in the work they put in and the bonds they've cultivated with the audience. We'll get one more outing with the main cast before the band officially is broken up, but there doubtless will be more announcement about upcoming Fast movies coming down the pipeline sometimes soon, just likely with a bit of a different bent.
In fact, Brewster has talked about the Fast saga continuing for "generations and generations" to come, and I'm interested to see what Universal will cook up once the final movie with the original cast hits the movie release schedule.
