The Fast & Furious saga will finally end after its 11th installment, Deadline and Variety report — which, if you’re counting, is one more movie than we were expecting until now. Justin Lin, who directed five of the past eight F&F films (counting the upcoming F9), is reportedly set to direct the last two as well.
Of course they were going to make another movie. Unlike Chaim and Julia, I may know next to nothing about Fast’s plot or characters, but I do know spectacle — and there was no way in hell a $5+ billion box office blockbuster franchise, a series whose every installment attempts to jump the shark in the most spectacular ways possible, and a series that’s literally about tuning cars to the max, wasn’t going to turn it all the way up to 11.
Also, that money. Money is a big reason.
Whether or not the series actually ends at 11 will likely depend on how many theaters continue to exist. Regal and Cineworld shut their doors, and AMC is running out of cash. F9 had already been delayed till April 2021 due to the pandemic, and it’s not yet clear when an F10 or F11 would debut. But it helps that Fast & Furious is a global cultural phenomenon, not just a US-centric one, with Variety pointing out that less than a quarter of Hobbs & Shaw’s box office totals came from the US.
If F9 does well, they’ll no doubt be thinking about an F12 — or at least some additional spinoffs. (There are already two in development.) I’ve got to agree with box office analyst Jeff Bock:
Universal’s FAST & FURIOUS franchise will reportedly end after Justin Lin directs the 10th & 11th installments.
I mean, why would you take your foot off the gas now? So much that has yet to be explored with electric vehicles and jetpacks.
— Exorcist Relations Co. (@ERCboxoffice) October 20, 2020