Dominic Toretto and his family will ride again next year, when production on Fast & Furious 9 gets underway in April. The film was originally scheduled to hit theaters in 2019, but was pushed back a year in order to make room for the as-yet untitled Fast & Furious spinoff movie spearheaded by Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham. Fast & Furious 9 is now slated to arrive in Spring 2020, instead.
Although Fast & Furious 9 is the first installment in the street racing-turned global action franchise written by Daniel Casey (Kin), it also features a familiar face at the helm, in the form of Justin Lin. The latter has directed four Fast & Furious movies already, but stepped away from the series after 2013's Fast & Furious 6 to go work on other projects, including the movie sequel Star Trek Beyond and the TV show pilots for Scorpion, S.W.A.T., and the Magnum P.I. reboot.
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GWW is reporting that Universal and Lin will begin shooting Fast & Furious 9 on April 20, 2019, with the franchise's longtime cinematographer Stephen F. Windon already in place to return. Dominic Toretto himself, Vin Diesel, previously claimed that Lin is committed to directing both Fast & Furious 9 and Fast 10, but neither the filmmaker nor Universal have confirmed that news yet. Similarly, it was once reported that the next two Fast & Furious movies would shoot back to back (with Fast 10 serving as the franchise's conclusion), but that no longer appears to be the plan.
Last year's The Fate of the Furious concluded with the villain Cipher (Charlize Theron) evading capture, so it stands to reason that Fast & Furious 9 will pick up that story thread. Fate of the Furious also set the stage for Dominic and Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) to raise Dom's young son Brian as their own, after Brian's birth mother - and Dom's former lover - Elena (Elsa Pataky) was killed by Cipher and her crew. Diesel has announced that Dom's sister Mia (Jordana Brewster) will appear in Fast & Furious 9, which further suggests the movie will spend some time on the Toretto family's homelife, before they head out on their next globe-trotting adventure.
However, it's looking more and more likely that Johnson's Luke Hobbs won't be coming along for the ride, this time. It's public knowledge now that Johnson and Diesel clashed while filming Fate of the Furious, before series costar Tyrese Gibson engaged in a series of social media posts criticizing The Rock last year. Johnson has since indicated that the Fast & Furious spinoff is his main priority, but has remained vague when it comes to his potential return for Fast & Furious 9.
Beyond that, though, Johnson may simply be too busy to participate in Fast & Furious 9, when it begins principal photography next spring. The actor is slated to film both Jumanji 3 and the action-thriller Red Notice in the first half of 2019, before potentially shooting DC's Black Adam movie in the latter part of the year. Hence, even if Hobbs does show up in the ninth Fast adventure, it probably won't be for more than a glorified cameo.
MORE: Vin Diesel & Dwayne Johnson Didn't Film Fast 8 Together
Source: GWW
