Early box office figures for Fast Five overseas suggest people aren’t tired of the car franchise yet, but the people calling the shots at Universal are intending to switch lanes for the next film. We heard that Chris Morgan had been re-hired to write the script for Fast Six last week, and now Universal chairman Adam Fogelson has revealed details on the plot.
From Deadline:
Universal’s intent is to transform the street-racing franchise into a series of heist films.
“We’ve heard so many people say, ‘I’ve never seen one, and I’ve never wanted to see one,’ about the Fast franchise,” Fogelson said. “So if these movies were still about street racing, there was probably a ceiling on how many people would buy tickets. We wanted to see if we could raise it out of about racing and make car driving ability just a part of the movie, like those great chases in The French Connection, The Bourne Identity, The Italian Job,” Fogelson explained. With Dodge as a partner, “Our strategy behind one of the biggest bets we’ve ever made is that the business has gone so far towards CG action every weekend, that we really believe creating a movie with real action and real cars will be amazing stuff to people excited by seeing something real.”
There’s the famous line “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it”, but Universal are obviously trying to broaden the appeal of the franchise by focusing less on the cars, and more on the general action. Having not seen Fast Five yet I’m not sure whether this qualifies as a spoiler. but the article also states Dwayne Johnson (who plays a federal agent assigned to track down the Fast Five gang) will be “integral to the action in Fast Six.”
What do fans of the franchise think of these plans? Would you rather the focus remain on cars, or would a change in plot help keep the franchise fresh?
