Following the $600m+ success of Fast Five this summer Universal wasted no time in getting Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, writer Chris Morgan and director Justin Lin back for the next film. Recently there were murmurs that a back-to-back shoot was being planned for the sixth and seventh films, and now reports suggest they could have one big linking storyline.

From 24 Frames:

Eager to move ahead with new installments of what’s currently the studio’s hottest series, Universal Pictures is considering shooting its sixth and seventh “Fast and Furious” movies back-to-back with a single story connecting the two films.

Universal already has penciled in a May 24, 2013, release for “Fast and the Furious 6,” but the consecutive shooting schedule may result in a later launch, as Lin would be shooting the seventh film before he could edit the sixth. By making the two movies together, the seventh film could be in theaters sooner than the typical two-year gap between the Vin Diesel movies.

Shooting both movies at the same time is often less expensive than if both movies were shot separately. The Matrix, Pirates of the Caribbean and The Lord of the Rings sequels were shot back-to-back, and James Cameron will be doing the same for Avatar 2 and 3.

Story details on Fast and Furious 6 and 7 haven’t been released, although Universal chairman Adam Fogelson said he hopes to transform the street-racing franchise into a series of heist films to attract a wider audience. The thinking is that more people will turn up if they are action films with cars, rather than car films with action. Fogelson also said Dwayne Johnson (who played a federal agent assigned to track down the Fast Five gang) will be “integral to the action in Fast Six.”

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Die Hard 5 has a title (A Good Day To Die Hard), a director in John Moore (Max Payne), and a release date of February 14, 2013. Now 20th Century Fox and Bruce Willis are testing actors to play John McClane’s son who, in the film, joins his farther in Russia and gets into trouble with local forces.

According to Variety:

In the next week, Willis will begin reading with actors for the role of John McClane’s son, including Ben Foster, Paul Dano, Aaron Paul and Milo Ventimiglia. Fox is also showing strong interest in Paul Walker, but he’s not expected to test.

As the pic began clearing obstacles, the role of McClane’s son has been on the minds of most of the young actors in Hollywood, as insiders say it could open the door to inherit the “Die Hard” franchise — much like Jeremy Renner could wind up the face of Tom Cruise’s “Mission: Impossible” series, or Shia LaBeouf in “Indiana Jones.”

Bruce Willis will likely have a key role in determining who gets the part (especially if they’re to carry on the franchise in the future). On paper Paul Walker has the advantage, coming off the $600m success of Fast Five, but both Paul Dano and Ben Foster have worked with Willis in the past. I suppose any of the names mentioned above could play John McClane’s son and whatever it entails.

Filming will begin in Russia early next year so casting confirmations will likely be appearing over the next few weeks.

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With Fast Five taking in nearly $600 million at the worldwide box office (shocking, I know) a sequel was inevitable, and now Universal has set the Fast and Furious 6 (or Fast Six) release date for May 24, 2013.

Fast Five director Justin Lin is set to direct for the fourth time in a row, and Vin Diesel, Paul Walker and Dwayne Johnson are all expected to return. Following the success of the last film Universal chairman Adam Fogelson said he hopes 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.”

He also said Dwayne Johnson (who plays a federal agent assigned to track down the Fast Five gang) will be “integral to the action in Fast Six.”

Other movies set for release in May 2013 include Iron Man 3 on May 3rd, and The Dark Tower on May 17th (although as that is also a Universal film there’s a good chance it will get moved. Studios don’t compete with themselves).

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I’m an unapologetic fan of the Fast and Furious franchise. Justin Lin has revitalized a franchise once thought to be near death, and by restructuring the timeline (which currently sits at 1, 2, 4, 5, 3) writer Chris Morgan has turned what was once simply a remake of Point Break – set in the world of street racing instead of surfing – into one of the most entertaining action franchises currently in Hollywood. The newest addition, Fast Five, reunites all the major players of the series and continues its tradition of providing audiences with big, dumb, overcharged fun drenched in testosterone.

The film picks up where Fast and Furious left off: Dominic Toretto (Diesel) has been sentenced to 25 years without parole, and it’s up to former FBI agent Brian O’Connor (Walker) and his girlfriend Mia Toretto (Brewster) to bust Dom out. After a ludicrous bus crash sequence, our lovable group of antiheroes flees to Rio de Janeiro, where they can catch their breath and lay low for a while. (The audience never forgets they’re in Rio, because there are no less than four excessive sweeping helicopter shots of the giant Jesus statue overlooking the city.) But since the audience doesn’t want to see a movie about people sitting around and waiting for the heat to blow over, Brian and Mia sign up for a job almost instantly after arriving. Their mission: boost a series of cars from a moving train. This sets up one of the best action sequences in a movie full of them – I won’t go into the details, but it’s a great sequence, well paced and executed with style by Justin Lin, who I really feel is coming into his own as a director.

The worst part about this new gig is the boosted cars belonged to Reyes, the resident villain who practically owns all of Rio (including their entire police force). He’s none too pleased to be put out; he’s searching for something that’s in one of those cars. So it’s up to Dom, Mia, and Brian to find out what it is and use it to take Reyes for all he’s worth. And good news for fans of this series: there are a ton of familiar faces, including Tyrese and Ludacris from 2 Fast 2 Furious, Vince from the original, Han from Tokyo Drift, and many more. But that’s not all: this franchise gets a boost of energy from Dwayne Johnson as Hobbs, a special agent tasked with tracking the Toretto crew down. I imagine Chris Morgan relished writing this character, a seemingly no-nonsense guy who ironically spouts nothing but nonsensical one-liners. A sample: a lackey tells Hobbs he has good news and bad news, to which Hobbs replies, “You know I like my dessert first.” Johnson is particularly well matched with this material, considering his professional wrestling background; Hobbs is basically a pro wrestler, complete with two inch staredowns with other sweaty men.

There is a much-touted fight scene between Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson that was worth the price of admission if you’re a fan of either of those guys. Unlike Stallone in The Expendables, Lin knows how to make a star-studded face-off engaging and bone-jarringly effective. (Sorry Sly. You’re my boy, but that movie was disappointing.) Like its predecessor, Fast Five also sets up for potential sequels, and Johnson has expressed interest in being a major player in The Fas6 and the F6rious or whatever they end up calling it. By the way, make sure to stick around for the post-credits sequence in Fast Five – fans of the series will definitely walk away intrigued.

I alluded earlier to Justin Lin’s impressive abilities behind the camera, and now I’ll go a step further: I think Michael Bay finally has some true competition in this genre. Bay has always been a master of expertly staged set pieces, but the extended vault heist sequence at the end of Fast Five is as equally destructive, ridiculous, and frenetic as anything I’ve seen in a Bay film. And after Lin dropped briefly into the TV world and directed Community’s “Modern Warfare” paintball episode, it’s even clearer to me the man has a deep understanding of all things action and can successfully walk the line between parody and legitimacy. None of the Fast and Furious movies should be taken seriously, but that’s the fun of them – the actors all play it straight while the audience sits back and laughs at the audacity and preposterousness of their scenarios.

The acting here is terrible, and the plot is the kind of stock story that fans of action films have come to expect, but none of that matters when the movie is this well-executed. I caught some flack recently for not liking Scre4m: my detractors were using the tried-and-true “what were you expecting? You know what you’re getting into with a movie like that” argument. While that may be true with some of the series-specific gags and such, I felt like that movie should work as either a comedy or a horror film (or both), and I didn’t think it succeeded on any level. In the case of Fast Five, some may use the same “what were you expecting?” argument when it comes to the characters, dialogue, story, etc. But the best part of Fast Five is this: it works as an action movie. It’s well paced, and there are some truly thrilling sequences, chases, shootouts, and heists. Even if you hate the characters and think the story is idiotic, you can’t deny that this is a worthy action film.

The floodgates of Summer 2011 have officially opened, and if the rest of this summer’s lineup has the same spirit as Fast Five, this will be a good year. This is a movie that features car surfing, Vin Diesel using his bulging forearms to block a hit from a metal pipe, and a finale chase scene that rivals The Blues Brothers. Go ahead and mark me down for Fas6 and F6rious – if it’s more of the same, I’m totally fine with that. Until next time…

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Although Fast Five won’t be released for another week Universal are expecting good things, and have already started working on the sequel, Fast Six (or Fast and the Furious 6).

The news comes from THR who heard Chris Morgan, the writer behind Wanted, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Fast and Furious and Fast Five, has signed a two-year deal with Universal and will soon begin writing the script for a sequel (which they call Fast Six).

Fast and Furious made $353 million worldwide in 2009 and Fast Five, which will hit screens on April 29, is expected to do equally as well, if not more as it is the first big summer blockbuster. In the film Dominic (Vin Diesel) and Brian (Paul Walker) find themselves on the wrong side of the law once again as they try to switch lanes between a ruthless drug lord and a relentless federal agent (Dwayne Johnson). No word yet on if they will return for Fast Six, but i’m sure they will be asked about it soon once the numbers for Fast Five roll in.

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While the summer movie season doesn’t really start until May Fast Five is the first big blockbuster out of the blocks, which will give it an advantage at the box office. Today Universal released a new full trailer for the movie which will be enjoyed by those who like cars, girls, explosions, more cars, Dwayne Johnson, more girls, and slow-mo ‘group walking towards camera’ shots.

Since Brian (Paul Walker) and Mia Toretto (Jordana Brewster) broke Dom (Vin Diesel) out of custody, they’ve blown across many borders to elude authorities. Now backed into a corner in Rio de Janeiro, they must pull one last job in order to gain their freedom. As they assemble their elite team of top racers, the unlikely allies know their only shot of getting out for good means confronting the corrupt businessman who wants them dead. But he’s not the only one on their tail.

When federal agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) is assigned to track down Dom and Brian, he and his strike team launch an all-out assault to capture them. But as his men tear through Brazil, Hobbs learns he can’t separate the good guys from the bad. Now, he must rely on his instincts to corner his prey…before someone else runs them down first.

Fast Five will hit screens on April 29th.

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Dennis McCarthy, the car coordinator for Tokyo Drift and Fast and Furious, has revealed the 21 cars featured in the upcoming Fast Five movie.

In a new interview, McCarthy provides some of the context for the movie, and explains why the cars this time around are going to be lower profile. Lower profile compared to the previous four movies. Not lower profile compared to what I drive.

From ScreenRant:

It’s due to the location and the circumstances. They are down to their last pennies. They’ve transferred all the way from the U.S. on the run down to Brazil, so they don’t have the money to buy a brand new Skyline. So it was just character, environmental, and based on their means.

For all you car enthusiasts, here is the quick list of the 21 cars:

• 1963 Ford Galaxy
• 1966 Ford GT40
• 1966 Corvette Grand Sport
• 1967 International Scout
• 1970 Charger
• 1970 Ford Maverick
• 1972 Nissan Skyline
• 1972 Pantera Detomaso
• 1996 Toyota Supra
• 2002 Porsche GT3
• 2006 GMC 2500 Yukon
• 2009 Nissan 370Z
• 2010 Dodge Challenger
• 2010 Subaru STi
• 2010 Lexus LFA
• 2010 Modified Vault Chargers
• 2011 Dodge Charger Police Interceptor
• Gurkha LAPV
• Ducati Street Racer
• Train Heist Truck
• Koenigsegg CCX

Not too shabby, hey?  Looks like car junkies are going to have something to drool over this summer.

Fast Five stars Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster, Vin Diesel, and Dwayne Johnson, and will be released April 29th.

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Cars, explosions and Dwayne Johnson spearing Vin Diesel through a window. Here’s the Super Bowl TV spot for Fast Five.

Since Brian (Paul Walker) and Mia Toretto (Jordana Brewster) broke Dom (Vin Diesel) out of custody, they’ve blown across many borders to elude authorities. Now backed into a corner in Rio de Janeiro, they must pull one last job in order to gain their freedom. As they assemble their elite team of top racers, the unlikely allies know their only shot of getting out for good means confronting the corrupt businessman who wants them dead. But he’s not the only one on their tail.

When federal agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) is assigned to track down Dom and Brian, he and his strike team launch an all-out assault to capture them. But as his men tear through Brazil, Hobbs learns he can’t separate the good guys from the bad. Now, he must rely on his instincts to corner his prey…before someone else runs them down first.

Fast Five was originally set to be released in June but Universal moved the release forward to April 29th.

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Universal has released the first trailer for Fast Five which stars Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster and Tyrese Gibson. Justin Lin, who has been directing the series since 2006′s The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, is once again in the directors chair so we know what to expect.

Watch the trailer below:

Since Brian (Paul Walker) and Mia Toretto (Jordana Brewster) broke Dom (Vin Diesel) out of custody, they’ve blown across many borders to elude authorities. Now backed into a corner in Rio de Janeiro, they must pull one last job in order to gain their freedom. As they assemble their elite team of top racers, the unlikely allies know their only shot of getting out for good means confronting the corrupt businessman who wants them dead. But he’s not the only one on their tail.

When federal agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) is assigned to track down Dom and Brian, he and his strike team launch an all-out assault to capture them. But as his men tear through Brazil, Hobbs learns he can’t separate the good guys from the bad. Now, he must rely on his instincts to corner his prey…before someone else runs them down first.

Fast Five was originally set to be released in June but Universal moved the release forward to April 29th. Fast and Furious earned $353 million worldwide when it hit last April making it the most successful film in the franchise, so the studio will be hoping to repeat that success.

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According to Box Office Mojo Universal has moved Fast Five up from it’s June 10th release to an earlier April 29th release. When Fast and Furious hit last April it earned $353 million worldwide, making it the most successful film in the franchise. Universal are likely hoping for similar April success again.

The change means Fast Five has little competition now, only Thor several days after, where as in its June slot it would have had to compete with X-Men: First Class from the previous week and Green Lantern the following weekend. Now only J.J Abram’s Super 8 remains in the June 10th weekend, so it will give all the June films more breathing room.

Since Brian (Paul Walker) and Mia Toretto (Jordana Brewster) broke Dom (Vin Diesel) out of custody, they’ve blown across many borders to elude authorities. Now backed into a corner in Rio de Janeiro, they must pull one last job in order to gain their freedom. As they assemble their elite team of top racers, the unlikely allies know their only shot of getting out for good means confronting the corrupt businessman who wants them dead. But he’s not the only one on their tail.

Hard-nosed federal agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) never misses his target. When he is assigned to track down Dom and Brian, he and his strike team launch an all-out assault to capture them. But as his men tear through Brazil, Hobbs learns he can’t separate the good guys from the bad. Now, he must rely on his instincts to corner his prey…before someone else runs them down first.

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