In the latest entry of our ongoing series, Screen Rant's Ryan George reveals what (probably) happened in the pitch meeting for Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw. The spinoff finds Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) reluctantly teaming up to save the world from a super-virus unleashed by a genetically-enhanced super-soldier called Brixton Lore (Idris Elba). Things are further complicated by the fact that Deckard's sister, Hattie Shaw (Vanessa Kirby) has already injected herself with the super-virus.
From its humble origins as a 2001 movie about a crew of car thieves, the Fast & Furious franchise has evolved into one of the biggest box office draws of the 21st century - so it's no surprise that it's now spilling out into spinoffs. Even without the rest of the family's involvement (they contracted a bad case of being mysteriously unavailable from the Marvel Cinematic Universe), Hobbs and Shaw still features two of the biggest action movie stars around. They're so big, in fact, that they're able to contractually ensure that they don't lose fights. Poor Brixton never stood a chance.
With a $200 million budget and surprise appearances by Ryan Reynolds and Kevin Hart, Universal was clearly hoping that Hobbs & Shaw would be as big a success as any of the main series entries - if not more so. However, while a strong turnout in China helped it to recently crawl past the $600 million mark at the worldwide box office, Hobbs & Shaw is still a bit of a disappointment compared to the billion-dollar plus totals of the most recent Fast & Furious movies. Perhaps the lower attendance is the result of people wanting to avoid Game of Thrones spoilers.
Next up in Hobbs and Shaw's world is Fast & Furious 9, though neither Hobbs nor Shaw are expected to actually make an appearance in the sequel, since Johnson and Statham were busy making their own movie. It's possible that the two movies will be set at the same time, which would certainly explain why the rest of the crew weren't able to help out with the super-soldier/attempted genocide situation.
Hobbs & Shaw could be just the start of a whole world of Fast & Furious spinoffs - and in fact, according to director David Leitch, that was his exact intention when making the movie. And considering that this spinoff had an army of Samoans fighting a genetically-enhanced "Black Superman" in order to save the world from a deadly mega-virus, it seems like the sky's the limit on the kind of shenanigans the family can get involved with.
More: Fast & Furious Movies Ranked Worst To Best (Including Hobbs & Shaw)