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.

[viaThe Drive]

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