The continuing success of the Fast and Furious car action franchise has resulted in plans for a spin-off movie featuring Dwayne Johnson, Charlize Theron and Jason Statham, it has emerged.
According to Variety, producing studio Universal have hired Chris Morgan – who worked on the last six films in the series – to write a screenplay for a project that would “revolve around Johnson and Statham teaming up to go after Theron’s character”. Johnson’s character, diplomatic service agent Luke Hobbs, first appeared in Fast Five, while Statham’s Deckard Shaw, after a brief appearance in the end credits of Fast & Furious 6, was the chief antagonist in 2015’s Furious 7. Theron’s cyberterrorist character Cipher is a recent addition to the series, appearing in the recent eighth instalment alongside Johnson, Statham and Vin Diesel.
Plans for a spin-off have been bolstered by the latest film’s exceptional box office results: The Fate of the Furious (AKA Fast & Furious 8) has achieved the number one position in the US for the second week in a row with a current total of $163m (£127m), and has added a further $745m internationally (led by $193m in China) for a global total of $907m.
Series producer Neal Moritz recently confirmed the intention to cap the series – which has so far made more than $4.8bn wordwide – at 10 films, saying: “We kind of have the ending point of the franchise, but we don’t know the in-betweens yet ... the plan is to make two more movies.”
