Star and producer of the Fast & Furious franchise, or as it's now known The Fast Saga, Vin Diesel will look at a script for a female-led spinoff this month. The series isn’t losing any traction as F9 prepares to hit theaters this summer. F9’s first trailer teased the return of Han Lue (Sung Kang) and deemed the franchise’s main storyline “The Fast Saga,” which began way back in 2001 with The Fast and the Furious. The Fast Saga includes 9 films following the story of Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker), Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel), and their crew of street-racing spies (of sorts). The franchise also includes one spinoff film, Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw which came out last year.
Aside from The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, which didn’t feature O’Conner or Torretto as protagonists, Hobbs & Shaw was the first film to focus on some of the wide variety of the main story’s side characters. That film saw Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) team up to save the world while also grossing over $760 million worldwide. This brings the entirety of the franchise’s box office gross to around $6 billion. Those numbers not only justify the existence of F9 but also an 11th film and more spinoffs.
In an interview with MTV International last month, Diesel and company spoke about the upcoming F9 as well as future plans for the franchise. Fast & Furious 10 is set to be the last in The Fast Saga; this has many wondering where the franchise goes next. When asked about this, Diesel said, “I’ve created a female spinoff, and that script comes in next month. So we will see." It’s unclear who exactly the female-centric entry will feature.
Given the already strong cast of female characters from the main saga, including Letty Ortiz (Michelle Rodriguez), Mia Toretto (Jordana Brewster), and Megan Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel), there's a wide variety of existing characters to chose from. Hobbs & Shaw also featured Magdelene Shaw (Helen Mirren) and Hattie Shaw (Vanessa Kirby), offering even more options for the female-led spinoff. In the aforementioned interview, Emmanuel said what the franchise needs is a “badass girl movie” in the vein of a “Charlie’s Angels type vibe with all the women.” If the script is strong, that may just be what we get.
The shelf-life of the Fast & Furious franchise feels virtually unparalleled, continuously triumphing at the box office for close to two decades. It makes sense for all those involved to want to capitalize on the brand and appeal to as many audiences as possible. For example, Netflix recently premiered Fast & Furious Spy Racers, a children’s animated television series. With a Hobbs & Shaw sequel being very much a possibility and a female-lead spinoff in the works, even more life could be breathed into the Fast & Furious universe—bad news for anyone hoping it would slow down.
Source: MTV International
