The 10th “Fast and Furious” movie is in theaters May.
While fans are gearing up to see more of Dom, Letty, Roman, and the rest of the “Fast” family back together on screen, it’s important to remember that most of the franchise almost didn’t happen.
According to a 2013 interview in The Wrap, the franchise stalled creatively after the second film in the series, “2 Fast 2 Furious.”
2001’s original “Fast and the Furious” movie with Diesel, Paul Walker, and Michelle Rodriguez made $207.3 million worldwide. 2003’s “2 Fast 2 Furious” built on that amount with $236.4 million worldwide. The sequel brought back Walker while ditching the rest of the original cast. Instead, it introduced later fan favorites, Ludacris and Tyrese to the series.
The third movie, 2006’s “Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift,” completely nixed the entire cast and feel of the first two films. “Tokyo Drift” revolved around a completely new character played by Lucas Black (“NCIS: New Orleans”). Despite a small surprise cameo at the film’s end from Diesel, the lack of recognizable stars or a real connection to the first two films, resulted in the series’ worst performance of the franchise, grossing $158.5 million.
Lucas Black is the star of “Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift.” YouTube via Universal
In turn, Universal, the studio behind the franchise, came close to releasing sequels directly to DVD.
“The talk internally was that the franchise was played out,” Jeffrey Kirschenbaum, former Universal Pictures co-president of production, told The Wrap. “At that point we were weighing whether to go straight to video or not for future sequels. We weren’t sure what we were going to do.”
What saved the franchise from direct-to-DVD purgatory?
Universal convinced Diesel to come back for a small, surprise cameo in “Tokyo Drift.” (In return for an appearance, Diesel wasn’t paid. He was given the rights to his “Riddick” franchise.) After seeing a huge response from audiences with Diesel in the picture, the studio handed a large amount of creative control over to the actor.
Audiences knew Diesel was the heart of the “Fast” franchise. Universal
Diesel is not just a producer; he considers himself to be the “saga visionary.” He does everything from structuring story to selecting songs for the soundtrack. Diesel has become the face of the franchise, and Universal knew that based off the huge amount of excitement over his surprise cameo in “Tokyo Drift.”
With Diesel back on board, Universal returned the franchise to its roots, focusing more on heists than underground street racing. Making the friendship between Diesel and Paul Walker the focus of the fourth film helped. The absence of one or the other in the second and third films didn’t benefit the franchise.
Another big factor in the franchise’s comeback was its budding global appeal.
Universal strung together a multi-ethnic cast to better reflect its diverse audience, from half-Samoan Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson to Israeli actress Gal Gadot. The series welcomed back Tyrese, Ludacris, and Sung Kang, who played Han in “Tokyo Drift.” Diesel even fought to bring back Michelle Rodriguez who appeared in the first film.
Tyrese, Michelle Rodriguez, Paul Walker, and Ludacris. Universal/Scott Garfield
Then, the franchise took the crew all over the world, from Brazil in “Fast Five” to Russia, Spain, and England in “Fast & Furious 6.” Its global ambitions have helped the franchise gross over $6 billion worldwide.
The “Fast and Furious” franchise became the 11th highest-grossing movie franchise of all time, besting out the “Transformers” and “Pirates of the Caribbean.” Since implementing many of these changes, the last four films grossed the majority of the franchise’s money worldwide — over $4.2 billion.
The recent “Fast and Furious” films have taken the franchise global. Universal
Universal also embraced social media. It gave “Fast & Furious 6” the largest social media campaign in the studio’s history, leading to a Facebook following of 34 million at the time.
“Furious 7,” meanwhile, amassed a fan following of 53 million on its official Facebook page. Before the film’s release, the number rivaled other upcoming anticipated blockbusters at the time like “Avengers” (which had 13.4 million likes) and “Star Wars” (13 million likes). It also helps that Vin Diesel has one of the largest Facebook followings with over 100 million followers.
The best lesson Universal learned is that before sending your franchise to the $5 bin, listen to your fanbase, whether it’s at test screenings or on social media. Having Vin Diesel onboard doesn’t hurt, either.
