In Fast X, Dominic Toretto must face a monster of his own making. Dante Reyes has his sights set on Dominic Toretto and his crew, who are responsible for taking everything from him in Rio de Janeiro many years ago when they killed his father and stole his family's fortune. Dante Reyes could prove to be the most dangerous enemy the Fast family has ever faced, as his goal is to see Dominic Toretto suffer.
Fast X is directed by Louis Leterrier, from a script written by Justin Lin and Dan Mazeau based on a story by Lin, Mazeau, and Zach Dean. Fast X stars franchise veterans in Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Jason Statham, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, John Cena, Jordana Brewster, Nathalie Emmanuel, Sung Kang, Helen Mirren, and Charlize Theron. Jason Momoa, Brie Larson, Rita Moreno, Daniela Melchior, Scott Eastwood, and Alan Ritchson join the Fast family in the tenth installment of this beloved action franchise.
Louis Leterrier spoke with Screen Rant about Fast X. He discussed working with Diesel, practical stunts in Fast X, and retconning Fast Five to create a villain. Leterrier also revealed that they already know what the final scene of the Fast franchise will be.
Louis Leterrier on Fast X
Screen Rant: I love Fast X! I've seen it twice now. I saw it yesterday in 4DX, and it was the most fun I've ever had in a movie theater. It was like being on a roller coaster.
Louis Leterrier: I'm so jealous. I've been wanting to, but I was gone when they were [doing] the for the presentation so I haven't seen it. Oh, I can't wait. Can't wait. I will go see this movie in 4DX.
This feels like the Infinity War of Fast and Furious. Can you talk about bringing over a decade of storytelling together in this film?
Louis Leterrier: It's quite a daunting task. Frankly, something that Dan Mazeau and Justin Lin had done brilliantly on that script that I read. I thought it was so interesting to retcon Fast Five, which is frankly my favorite and a lot of people's favorite Fast and Furious movie, and just use that and frankly the greatest action scene in modern cinema, with the safe heist through the streets of Rio and make the birth of a villain out of this. That gave an open mind to creativity in everybody's mind to pure creativity.
Fast Five was my favorite installment of the franchise until I watched Fast X, which blew it out of the water. The stunts are next level in Fast X. How do you ante that up from the previous installments, especially F9, where they went into space?
Louis Leterrier: There was no anyting up going to space. So we had to bring it back to Earth and make it more practical, make it more gravity based although we're pushing the limit of gravity as much as we can, but also bringing the cars front and center in this movie. We haven't seen cars and frankly, a driving villain for a long, long while and that was very important for me as a big fan of the franchise. That gave us permission to push the envelope within the reality that we're allowed. So that meant going practical with so much as you saw the streets of Rome with that ball.
That ball was built practically obviously, it was not a bomb, but it was a 1.2 ton metal orb that we rolled down the streets of the Eternal City, the ancestral streets of Rome where everything is fragile. Literally even the shaking the rumbling of that bomb was like, "Did we break something?" Then also, globe trotting the way they have before but bringing your characters on the ground. This movie is built from the ground up, it's built from the characters up.
Are there any action sequences you guys came up with that ended up actually not being or being logistics logistically impossible?
Louis Leterrier: Everything was logistically possible we just had to for safety sometimes shoot element after element. Obviously the dam seen, dubbed the vertical quarter mile run, as I call it. We can have somebody drive that car, but that car in a dam and kind of like a piece at the end of that. So we drove the car on an airport and we didn't actually incline the stuff. Then we shot the shots on location with drones and helicopters. And then we [combine] both of them together.
The beauty of Fast and Furious as a director is you can imagine and that dam scene was out of this crazy brain of mine. And expose this crazy scene, his fantasy action sequence to a crew that will be like, "Okay, how do we do this?" They start talking, and then they make it real. They make your fantasy real. It's never happened to me. Tou come up with something and they say, "Well, it didn't. It's a very different thing." But we all roll up our sleeves, originally everybody rolls up their sleeves and we start working and working and meeting after meeting after test after rehearsal. This team came alive.
Can you talk to me about working with Vin Diesel, especially with how he's grown to be the voice of the leader of the Fast franchise and family?
Louis Leterrier: The beauty of working with Vin is not only is it he one of the most charismatic actors and a fantastic thespian, an amazing actor. He's also a truly gifted storyteller, that never stops thinking. He plays, he is a Dungeon Master. He does play Dungeons and Dragons and video games all the time. His mind is always creating story and interconnecting ideas. That's why this franchise has grown to be extremely complex sense of story where stuff comes back and everything.
He never stops. I never stop it. I found my match in Vin Diesel because he just keeps going. Yesterday, or two days ago, I was in the plane going from Rome to Mexico and suddenly my phone lights up with Vin's, text, and I was like, "What's going on?" And they were story ideas for the next one. Yesterday, I was like, "Okay," we started talking to each other and conceiving, because it's flowing. It's not just flow. It's proper storytelling.
Vin Diesel announced Fast X as the beginning of a trilogy. Are you planning the third installment as well?
Louis Leterrier: Yeah. Every movie Fast or any movie, except if it's written like Lord of the Rings, I don't think you can look so far into the future, because you're missing what's in front of you, and you don't pay attention to what's in front of you. So really, we're paying attention to one movie at a time. The story will tell us where we need to go. It might be one movie, it might be two movies, but who knows? What we know is where we're ending Fast and Furious. The Fast franchise, the core franchise will end with a very precise scene that we have written that we know. It's so beautiful and so powerful, but now the roads leading to it can be long, but what we know is that they'll be exciting, especially in 4DX.
About Fast X
Dominic Toretto must protect his family from a new threat with ties to his past. Dante Reyes, son of Hernan Reyes from Fast Five, seeks revenge against Dominic for the loss of his family fortune and the death of his father. Dominic must pull his family together to protect each other from the most volatile threat they've faced yet.
Check out our Fast X interview with Jason Momoa and tour of the Fast X car supervisor's garage for insight into the new cars and motorcycles in the movie.