Paul Walker was the face of the Fast & Furious franchise at the beginning, so why didn't he return for The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift? Now known as one of the biggest movie franchises around the globe, Fast & Furious has risen high from its humble beginnings. The original 2001 film made $200 million worldwide on a small budget and introduced viewers to Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and Walker's Brian O'Conner. 2 Fast 2 Furious, which starred Walker, doubled the budget but only earned about $30M more worldwide.
For the third entry in the franchise, Universal Pictures journeyed to Japan with The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. The film largely focuses on new characters, with Lucas Black playing the lead of Sean Boswell. Tokyo Drift is also where Sung Kang made his debut as Han and the story was largely self-contained to drifting across Tokyo instead of drag racing or working for the cops. The one moment when this changed was Diesel making a cameo as Dom at the very end, but many fans were surprised Walker didn't return at some point too.
Walker didn't reprise his role as Brian in Tokyo Drift, but that's not because he didn't want to. He revealed in the past that his absence came down to a new direction that the studio wanted to take the Fast & Furious franchise. In an article the LA Times published in 2015, Walker was quoted saying, "politics, studio stuff, a regime decision" as to why he didn't appear.
Even though Walker didn't spell out exactly why he wasn't in Tokyo Drift, what he is alluding to might have something to do with how the film changed throughout development. Writer Chris Morgan told Collider in 2017 that when he originally pitched the sequel to Universal, Tokyo Drift was meant to star Diesel. The story followed Dom going to Tokyo after someone he knows died and he learns about drifting as he attempts to find out what happened. But with the somewhat disappointing response to 2 Fast 2 Furious, Universal made the switch to focus on a high school setting instead. Although it wasn't confirmed Walker would return in this original version of Tokyo Drift, the studio forcing the focus to turn to a younger cast could be tied to the reasons the actor gave for his absence.
The decision to not include Walker in Tokyo Drift might have made sense to Universal at the time, but it did make the sequel stand out for a while, as it was the only film to not include Brian O'Conner. This changed after the tragic loss of Walker during the production of Furious 7, as The Fate of the Furious joined Tokyo Drift as entries in the franchise without the former star. And even though F9 will continue down this path, the tenth installment in the series will include multiple connections to The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift through a variety of cameos and Han's return.
Update: Clarified the LA Times article was published in 2015, not that the interview was conducted then.
