The Fast and Furious franchise returned for its ninth film with this year's F9: The Fast Saga. This time, the story dove deeper into the backstory of the Toretto family, featuring flashbacks of a young Dominic (Vinnie Bennett) and Jakob Toretto (Finn Cole), played as adults by Vin Diesel and John Cena, as well as showing Dom's race car driving father Jack (JD Pardo). F9 was directed by Justin Lin, who will also direct the final two films in the epic, globe-trotting saga. The director's cut of F9 is now available on digital and Blu-ray.
Screen Rant spoke with the newcomers to the Fast saga, Bennett and Pardo, about starring in the global franchise and where they would like to see their characters go next.
Screen Rant: What does it mean to you guys to be a part of this franchise now that you've kind of seen the full fandom of it all?
Vinnie Bennett: It's crazy. I don't know. I was excited myself to see it and then I've seen it and I was blown away. But then to see how it's just kind of traveled like wildfire around the whole globe and to see how well it's done and see how many people have gone out to see it, despite coming just out of a pandemic, it's pretty special. It's a really cool feeling.
JD Pardo: It's great. I think that to [get] asked to be part of it was just a dream come true, and then you watch it and see how well it's doing and how big it is, and you're just like, wow. This is a blessing. And I feel lucky. I feel like I kind of won the lotto in a way. It's nice, it's great. It's great. I love it, absolutely love it. I don't have words really for it.
Some of the biggest reception, I think, after I saw it, in the lobby, was talking about the flashback scenes in F9 and how great they were. And I'm just over here with Justin Lin pitching young Dom series. It's right there. I'm an exec, what do you pitch? What do you want to see as a prequel?
Vinnie Bennett: Young Dom series? Man, there's so much we could do. I feel like we could keep jumping back with Jack. There's Letty there; you can see how he meets Vince, Jesse, all those characters from the first one. Learn how he gets his red RX-7 that he's driving in the first one. Yeah. There's so much that we can dig into. I hope that we do.
JD Pardo: Yeah, it's cool. You get to see how the characters, the inception, right?
Vinnie Bennett: Yeah, yeah. What they were doing.
JD Pardo: Maybe they met at the arcade.
Vinnie Bennett: Yeah. The ice cream parlor or whatever.
Well, we are nearing the end of the main saga. I keep saying main saga because there's going to be spinoffs and stuff, I'm sure of it. What's something you guys would like to see in these last two movies?
JD Pardo: Oh, I just want to see how far they can keep going.
How do you top going to space?
Vinnie Bennett: That's the thing.
JD Pardo: We were talking about that maybe you get transported now. I don't know.
Vinnie Bennett: Aliens. I don't know. I was reading something about them crossing with either Jurassic Park or Transformers. I don't know, but personally, I would like to see for the final two, or even the final one, is everyone from all of the movies, all of the villains come together and they try to take them down. And then you've got the Rock come back in just a big kind of Avengers assemble moment. (laughter)
The Director's Cut of F9: The Fast Saga is now available on digital and Blu-ray from Universal Home Entertainment.