The cast and crew of the Fast & Furious franchise are very social media-savvy and have kept the conversation around Fast & Furious 8/Fast 8 going continuously since production on the film started (well ahead of its Spring 2017 release date). Costar Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is pretty much a one-man social media marketing army himself, having posted multiple images of himself in character as Agent Hobbs from the Fast 8 set throughout principal photography.

Johnson has now posted his most intriguing Fast 8 tease yet, when it comes to hinting at Hobbs' role in the movie's storyline. Whereas a previously-released Fast 8 photo showed Hobbs standing in what appeared to be a prison yard (complete with a fence topped with barbed wire), the newest Fast 8 image shows "The Rock" shackled and wearing a proper orange prison jumpsuit, no less.

Here's the tease that Johnson previously offered with regard to where we find Hobbs in Fast 8, followed by the new image:

When you strip a man of all he has. All that's important to him. You force him to return to his roots.. and sometimes that's a very dangerous and twisted place.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BHudC-kDSty/

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The question of why, exactly, of all people in the Fast & Furious universe it's the law enforcement Agent Hobbs goes to prison in Fast 8 is an intriguing one. It's possible that he's framed for a crime by the film's villain Cypher (played by Charlize Theron) and then joins forces with Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and Dom's "family" in order to clear his name. Another possibility is that Hobbs goes under-cover in prison, perhaps in order to carry out some mission that concerns Furious 7 villain Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham), who is coming back for Fast 8. There could be another explanation altogether for the above picture, of course.

Fast & Furious 8 with Vin Diesel filming in Cuba

By the look of it, Fast 8 director F. Gary Gray (Straight Outta Compton) and franchise screenwriter Chris Morgan are moving the Fast & Furious series away from the heist genre territory - where Fast Five and Fast & Furious 6 went - and further into the realm of the globe-trotting espionage genre (building on the foundation laid by Furious 7), with their installment. Indeed, it seems as though Dom and his crew are basically secret agents working for "Mr. Nobody" (Kurt Russell) this time around, if footage released from the Fast 8 set is any indication of where the story is headed.

In other word: with Dom and his crew taking on a new covert operation for the U.S. government, it would only be fitting that Hobbs does some undercover work of his own, possibly in prison. As mentioned, Fast 8 is a ways off still, so feel free to speculate even more about that possibility (and other elements of the film), in the meantime.

Fast 8 is directed by F. Gary Gray and written by Chris Morgan, with a cast that includes Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Natalie Emmanuel, Kurt Russell, Jason Statham, Charlize Theron, Kristofer Hivju, Scott Eastwood, and Helen Mirren.

Fast 8 opens in U.S. theaters on April 17th, 2017, followed by Fast and Furious 9 on April 19th, 2019, and Fast and Furious 10 on April 2nd, 2021.

Source: Dwayne Johnson