Since beginning its life in 2001, theFast & Furiousfranchise has gone from its roots grounded in the world of street racing to near superhero heights that have certainly walked the line of legitimate realism. Despite how over-the-top things have gotten, the franchise remains a global phenomenon that has grossed $7.3 billion globally to date across ten movies. That’s nothing to sneeze at, but there is no denying that there has been a case of diminishing returns, especially on the domestic front. If recent rumors are true, the studio has taken notice of this and the franchise’s ballooning budgets and wants to bring it back to its roots. But, given how absurd things have gotten, is it too late for theFastfranchise to go back to basics for its alleged final installment?
The notion of the franchise going back to its more bare-bones origins stems from a report that suggests the studio wants the franchise tobe more “lean and mean"with a budget that is trimmed to $200 million or less. The intention is for the next installment to be more of a throwback to the first film, with Dom (Vin Diesel) and his crew going to fewer globe-trotting locations and focusing on one big heist or race. Hardcore fans have been wanting theFastfranchise to go back to its street racing origins, but the series has ventured far from that, so scaling things back could prove to be difficult and more unrealistic than some of the antics this team has gotten into.
The Fast Franchise Began Grounded in Reality
The Fast and the Furious
Released in 2001,The Fast and the Furiouswas pretty muchPoint Breakwith cars. The film, based on theVibemagazine article “Racer X” by Ken Li, follows Brian O’Conner (played by Paul Walker), an LAPD officer, who goes undercover in the street racing world to investigate a group of unknown hijackers who are alleged to be led by Dominic Toretto (Diesel). The main series of thefts in the first movie are electronic goods stolen from semi-trucks. At the heart of the film is the street racing culture, from its style, intensity, and the people that inhabit its ranks. It’s wonderfully simplistic in its approach, which is why the movie went on to become a surprise hit, grossing over $207 million worldwide on a $38 million budget.
Fast and Furious: How the Franchise Shifted Its Focus After Tokyo Drift
You likely know the Fast & Furious saga is more than just fast cars and heists, but did you know there was a whole shift in focus after Tokyo Drift?
In2 Fast 2 FuriousandThe Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, thestunts and street sequencesbecame bigger, but the plots still stayed relatively grounded. A suspension of disbelief wasn’t entirely necessary to enjoy what was on the screen. Unfortunately, the second and third installments didn’t perform at the level that Universal was hoping for.2 Fast 2 Furiousgrossed a bit more globally than the first film ($236.4 million) but it also had a higher start yet quicker decline than its predecessor domestically.Tokyo Driftis still the lowest-grossing film of the franchise at $159 million worldwide. Despite returns dwindling, Universal still saw life in the franchise, and that began with, oddly enough, going back to basics and bringing back the crew that started it all.
2009’sFast & Furiousbrought all the main cast back from the first film, with Diesel, Walker, Jordana Brewster, and Michelle Rodriguez, returning to the fold. While the film has the essence of what made the first movie such a hit, the fourth installment also shows signs of where things were ultimately headed. The stunts were bigger than ever and the heists certainly escalated from DVD players to jobs with much higher stakes. Audiences responded to this and the franchise was back on track, grossing over $360 million globally, which seemed to give all the creatives behind the scenes the indication that fans wanted them to go even bigger.
Fast Fiveis when the franchise officially took on a new life. Street racing and small-stake jobs were thrown out of the window for a heist involving stealing $100 million from a corrupt businessman while also being pursued by DSS agent Luke Hobbs (newestcast addition Dwayne Johnson). The crew expanded and by the film’s action-packed climax, a giant vault is being dragged through the streets of Brazil, destroying everything in its path. This certainly wasn’t theFastfranchise the audience once knew, but the box office gave the impression this is what moviegoers wanted. By the end of its run, the film cleared $626 million worldwide, a significant improvement over the fourth film.
Is It Too Late for the Franchise To Return to Its Roots?
With each subsequent installment, attempts to stay grounded were virtually ignored. Characters thought to be dead return with amnesia (Rodriguez’s Letty inFast & Furious 6) and an Antonov An-124 jet is grounded on the longest runway in the world and bursts into flames as it hits the ground, but Dom makes it out alive by bursting through the nose of the jet in his car (Furious 6again). By the time Roman (Tyrese) and Tej (Ludacris)go to space inFast & Furious 9, something that was joked about in pop culture that the films felt needed to be made a reality, it had become clear that there is nothing grounded about the franchise anymore. Every character is a glorified superhero that appears to be immune to pain or even death (looking at you Han and Gisele).
Every Fast & Furious Movie, Ranked by Letterboxd
Fast & Furious is Universal Pictures' biggest franchise, centering around action films involving illegal street racing, heists, spies, and family.
Throughout all of this silliness, the films could rely on box office numbers to justify its big swings. AfterFast & Furious 6cleared $788.7 million globally,Furious 7was even more successful in 2015, although it also had to deal with thereal-life death of Walker, which likely boosted figures from casual viewers who wanted to see how it was addressed. With $1.5 billion grossed globally, it’s the most successful installment of the franchise and could’ve ended there as a fitting tribute to Walker and his character of Brian O’Conner, but the films kept going.
It was obvious after the eighth film that fans were eager for things to go back to basics, but they only doubled down on the larger-than-life stunts and action across the globe in its next two installments. At this point, the franchise is so far away from what it was that it almost feels like an entirely different series at this point. There is no real explanation of how some of the crew pick up some of their discernible skills, from hand-to-hand combat to computer hacking, now that this is being met with a collective rolling of the eyes, it seems to be time to dial it back.
Going back to basics now could be a case of too little, too late. Pandora’s box was opened long ago and trying to close it might be one of the series' most outrageous stunts to date. Things have been so big for so long that the only thing they could hope for is a humble mix of the best of both worlds. Maybe something that is an homage to its beginnings while also maintaining the absurd action and situations that have become its signature. Needless to say, things have gotten so over the top over the years that it might be too hard to buy a return to its roots, but it will be interesting to see just how they make that one last ride work.
