Fast And Furious Spinoff With The Rock And Jason Statham Is Coming In 2019

The first Fast and Furious spinoff movie starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Jason Statham has got a release date now – July, 26, 2019.

The Fate of the Furious isn’t exactly the best film in the 17-year old Fast and Furious franchise. But it had its moments of awesomeness and the entertaining onscreen camaraderie between Jason Statham’s Deckard Shaw and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s Luke Hobbs was among the best things about the eighth instalment. They were so good together that the studio explored the possibility of a full-fledged spinoff with these two action heroes in the limelight.

Producer Neal H. Moritz’s plans to shoot and add a tag scene in The Fate of the Furious to tease a potential spinoff had added fuel to the fire during filming, as that infamous intense feud between Dwayne Johnson and leading man Vin Diesel was going on at that time. The Wrap report on the conflict says that Diesel got so angry that he made the studio recall all prints and sliced the scene off the final theatrical version.

Anyway, the dust settled eventually and The Rock shook hands with Diesel, after which Universal Pictures announced its plans to make a Hobbs-Shaw spinoff. Perhaps the mediators breathed some sense into Diesel’s mind and the studio may have enlightened him on the concept of “live and let live so that all of us can make a lot of money”. Anyway, all is good and great now, as the aforementioned team-up flick has got a release date – July 26, 2019.

(Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images) /

Not everyone is happy about the announcement of the upcoming Fast and Furious spinoff. Tyrese Gibson has lashed out already.

The spinoff which will see The Rock and Statham reprise their roles as DSS agent Luke Hobbs and ex-military-turned-mercenary Deckard Shaw, could possibly be a Lethal Weapon-style buddy cop movie with the scale, scope and spectacle of a Fast and Furious actioner.

Universal Pictures chairman Donna Langley told The Hollywood Reporter,

"Fast & Furious is one of Universal’s most beloved properties, and we handle every decision we make surrounding this franchise with great care. The global brand of Fast & Furious is strong and full of iconic characters, and we look forward to continuing to build on the film that started it all, as well as expanding into different narratives beginning with our first spinoff."

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The THR report on the update states that Chris Morgan who penned all instalments in the series, starting with the underappreciated The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, has been roped in to prepare the script for the first spinoff in the franchise.

I’m more excited about the spinoff movie than Fast and Furious 9 which has been pushed to an April 10, 2020 release date.

Preparing myself for the punches to follow, as hardcore fans of Vin Diesel are around in full force. But here it goes anyway. It’s tiresome to see Vin Diesel using his role as the producer to build entire story arcs and events around his character, gifting himself with more face time and prominence throughout the series and revelling in the outcome. And he does all of that while surrounding himself with highly-talented and capable actors who have more box office draw and screen presence than him.

Next: The Fate Of The Furious: 10 Best Insanely-Awesome Scenes

While admitting that Diesel was among the key players who drove the franchise from its humble beginnings in 2001 as a small street-racing movie to a globe-trotting, star-studded, Marvel-DC-rivalling, action series with two $1 billion+ smash hits on its belt, I still prefer to see Johnson and Statham, as they are more charismatic and likable in the roles handed to them. You need proof of that? Watch that hilarious on-set improvised scene from The Fate of the Furious. I’d take that over the trademark Vin Diesel “mumble-growl” any day.

Source: THR

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