When you’re running a major Hollywood studio and you have a franchise that’s as popular as Fast & Furious, you don’t just greenlight one movie at a time. That’s why Universal has got Vin Diesel hard at work on both Fast & Furious 9 and Fast & Furious 10 right now.
Diesel has said that these will be the second and third installments of a Fast & Furious trilogy that began with the eighth movie, 2017’s The Fate of the Furious, which began the franchise’s post-Paul Walker tenure with class following Furious 7’s heartfelt send-off. So, here is Everything We Know (So Far) About Fast & Furious 9 & 10.
Justin Lin is directing both movies
Justin Lin, who directed every Fast & Furious movie from Tokyo Drift up to Fast & Furious 6, is returning to the franchise to helm its ninth and tenth installments. Lin stepped down after the sixth one, making way for James Wan to bring his inventive brand of suspenseful filmmaking to the seventh one and for F. Gary Gray to bring his sharp, character-focused directing eye to the eighth one.
In the meantime, Lin has taken the reins of the Star Trek franchise from J.J. Abrams to helm Star Trek Beyond and is signed on to direct a Hot Wheels movie for Warner Bros. and Mattel after the next two F&F outings.
Jordana Brewster is back as Mia Toretto
After Paul Walker’s untimely passing, the character of Brian O’Conner was retired from the Fast & Furious franchise, with James Wan providing a powerful tribute for the character at the end of Furious 7.
However, this left the character of Mia Toretto, played by Jordana Brewster, up in the air. For a while, her role in the franchise had been as Brian’s wife and as the mother of Brian’s children, so with Brian retiring from the crew, she pretty had to follow suit. Now, the makers of Fast & Furious 9 have found a way to bring her back into the fold.
They’ll release a year apart
Fast & Furious 9 will be released on May 22, 2020. Although it’ll be three years between The Fate of the Furious and Fast & Furious 9, making it the longest gap between entries in the main series since the three years between the third and fourth films, we’ll only have to wait one year (slightly less than a year, actually) for the tenth movie, which will hit theaters on April 2, 2021.
The ninth film will be released on the same day as The SpongeBob Movie: It’s a Wonderful Sponge, while the tenth film has no announced competition yet (although The Boss Baby 2 will reach audiences one week earlier).
Cipher no longer has dreadlocks
Charlize Theron’s villain character Cipher made the odd choice to wear dreadlocks in The Fate of the Furious. The look instantly confused and divided fans, who found them distracting and unusual. Theron would later say in an interview that the dreadlocks were her manager’s idea. Cipher will be back in the ninth Fast & Furious movie, although the dreadlocks are no more.
Theron recently shared a photo of Cipher’s new look on Instagram. Now, she has short hair, shaped into a stylish kind of bowl-cut. The Fast franchise has a way of redeeming its most popular villainous characters and turning them good, so perhaps this is Cipher’s destiny.
Helen Mirren is back as Magdalene Shaw
After a minor uncredited appearance in The Fate of the Furious and a larger supporting role in Hobbs & Shaw, Helen Mirren’s Fast & Furious character Magdalene Shaw – the mother of Owen and Deckard Shaw – will be appearing in Fast & Furious 9, possibly setting her up for a larger role as the criminal mastermind villain running things in the as-yet-untitled upcoming female-fronted spin-off from the franchise.
Mirren was cast delightfully against type in the action-oriented role of “Queenie” Shaw and she clearly relished the chance to play the sort of role that older actors don’t usually get to play.
Shooting began in June
Production kicked off for Fast & Furious 9 back in June, with Vin Diesel commemorating the cameras starting to roll with a social media post. Diesel posted a video on Instagram where he appeared on an outdoor set with co-star Michelle Rodriguez, claiming that the first day of shooting the movie was complete (although there were still many more left to go).
Nathalie Emmanuel, who is also returning to her Fast & Furious role as the British computer hacker Ramsey, similarly tweeted to announce the start of production: “Day one of shooting Fast & Furious 9 today...The team is back together.”
Dwayne Johnson might be returning
Over the past few years, Dwayne Johnson has clashed with Fast & Furious star Vin Diesel, leading to the pair sharing hardly any scenes in The Fate of the Furious and Luke Hobbs being seemingly written out of the main series. Tyrese Gibson badmouthing Hobbs & Shaw only exacerbated things.
However, Johnson seems to have reconciled with the wider Fast & Furious cast. The Rock recently posted a video on Instagram in which he thanked Diesel, praised his “classy” support, and quoted Hobbs by saying, “I’ll be seeing you, Toretto.” So, while it hasn’t been announced, it seems likely that he’ll be back.
Daniel Casey is joining series screenwriter Chris Morgan
Chris Morgan, who has scripted every Fast & Furious movie since Tokyo Drift (including Hobbs & Shaw), is back to pen Fast & Furious 9, but he’ll also be joined by a co-writer for the first time: Daniel Casey. Casey’s only feature writing credit is 2018’s little-seen sci-fi actioner Kin, which starred Zoe Kravitz, Michael B. Jordan, and James Franco.
Kin was criticized for its use of genre clichés, but praised for a satisfying final sequence and shocking ending, which could be why Universal has decided to bring Casey on board a somewhat predictable franchise in need of some surprises.
John Cena and Michael Rooker have joined the cast
As if the Fast & Furious franchise didn’t have enough muscle-bound super-stars in its roster (between Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, and Jason Statham, most of these movies’ budgets must get spent on protein powder), John Cena has joined the cast of Fast & Furious 9 in an undisclosed role.
Hopefully, the movie will feature a fight where Cena goes toe-to-toe with fellow ex-wrestler Johnson. Michael Rooker, who made his name as Merle Dixon in the first three seasons of AMC’s The Walking Dead before humanizing a blue-skinned, flesh-eating, child-trafficking spaceman as Yondu in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, has also joined the cast.
Fast & Furious 10 will be the final film in the franchise
It’s been announced that after Fast & Furious 9, Fast & Furious 10 will conclude the franchise. Rob Cohen, who helmed the first movie in the series, The Fast and the Furious, the Point Break rip-off that started it all, threw his hat in the ring to direct the final film in the series, although it looks as though Justin Lin will be taking on that responsibility.
With Fast & Furious 9 and 10 releasing a year apart, shooting back-to-back, and wrapping up the whole series, it looks like they’ll be the Infinity War and Endgame of the Fast & Furious franchise.
