Director David Leitch discusses his up-coming Fast & Furious Hobbs & Shaw spin-off film.
Deadpool 2 has proven to be a box office success, knocking Avengers: Infinity War off of the top spot for the first time in its theatrical run, the latter Marvel movie now being the fourth largest global release of all time, according to Box Office Mojo. The second instalment of the adventures of The Merc with the Mouth is estimated to earn $125 million in its opening weekend in the USA once the final figures are in, becoming the second largest R-rated opening ever behind the original Deadpool’s $132.4 million opening in 2016.
Meanwhile Deadpool 2 director David Leitch will now start turning his attention to the Fast & Furious spin-off featuring Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham). Speaking recently to Collider the director remarked that the intention for the movie is for it to be more realistic than the other films in the Fast Franchise;
“I think it’s going to be a little bit more grounded because it’s the beginning. It’s an origin story, in a sense. It’s not an origin story, but we’re starting a franchise. So we want it to be a little bit more grounded, a little bit more character-centric. We’re going to set up the stakes for these guys and their relationship, but we’re also going to have some great set pieces and some action that you’d expect from that type of franchise.”
The pairing was of course set up in the eighth instalment of the Fast and Furious series with the two former enemies being forced to work together and eventually finding a mutual respect for one other. The film supposedly had a post credit scene which would set up the spin-off that was reportedly removed before its release due to Vin Diesel’s disapproval. Leitch went on to give more of his insight into the upcoming movie;
“We’re diving into their world. I think we want to have our own take on the Fast universe. It will definitely have elements of the original DNA, but it is more drifting into Shaw’s spy word and Dwayne’s agent world and, obviously, we want to build on their relationship, their conflict, their banter. That chemistry that they have between them, that’s sort of what’s driving the movie.”
Whilst Leitch seems to be trying to distance the spin-off from the main franchise, he didn’t necessarily rule out the return of familiar faces from the Fast universe, hinting that it may be a “fun nod”, but he seemed to lean more towards this film being a separate entity that potentially forms its own franchise;
“I think you have to do both, I think long term. Obviously being true to the script and making the best movie, you do want to seed elements that allow you to expand the universe and have enough characters to move forward. If you look at the first Fast, they had the core group that allowed them to be able to have this ensemble that moved forward for nine movies. We have to set up the world so it has the potential to grow. That’s what I’m saying with, if we’re digging into their respective worlds outside of Fast, they’re going to have their own universe in a sense.”
Universal has set a July 26, 2019 release date for the as of yet untitled spin off. Chris Morgan, who has written every Fast & Furious franchise film since Tokyo Drift, is on board to write the script.