Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Where I Want the Fast & Furious Franchise to Go Next

by Adam Riske
Furious 7 is in the can and Brian O’Conner has retired. Where should the road lead from here? I have a few suggestions.

This column contains spoilers for Furious 7.

12. Get Dan Stevens in There – As evidenced by The Guest, we know Dan Stevens can play a great bad guy, so let’s get him in this franchise which, frankly, has been a little lacking in the villain department. Maybe he could team up with Cole Hauser’s bad guy from 2 Fast 2 Furious?
11. Give Michelle Rodriguez More to Do Other Than Have Amnesia – One thing that surprised me in Furious 7 was Michelle Rodriguez’s relaxed and sympathetic performance. It’s the best work she’s done in the series. Now that her amnesia has cleared (thank goodness), let’s give her something to do other than act confused and battle female MMA fighters. She’s got the chops.

10. Bring Back Eva Mendes – Mia Torretto (Jordana Brewster) is presumably retired from the series  and Giselle (Gal Gadot) is dead, so why not bring back some girl power that has some history with the series already? I’m talking about Eva Mendes’ character Monica Fuentes from 2 Fast 2 Furious. Remember at the end of Fast Five she had a scene with Dwayne Johnson’s Hobbs character, so they share a universe too. Have Monica get into the fold and mix it up with Tyrese Gibson’s Roman Pierce again. Remember they got on each other’s nerves in 2 Fast. Milk that again.
9. Up the Banter between Luda and Tyrese and Include DK – One of the best things about the F&F series is the interplay between Roman, Brian (Paul Walker) and Tej (Ludacris). Now that Brian’s gone, we need someone to throw into that dynamic. Dom is too humorless. We don’t have Han anymore, so why not make it the Drift King, aka DK (Lucas Black), from Tokyo Drift? This would also rupture the dynamic Roman-Brian-Tej had, making Tej sort of the alpha of the three and DK now the punching bag instead of jokester Roman.

8. Retire Ramsey – You don’t have to kill her off, but Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel) was kind of a lame addition to the cast so I’d like to see her retired from the series. She’s a superfluous character since she does the same thing as Tej (i.e. computer hacker) and she’s behind the G-D’s Eye from Furious 7 which was the dumbest thing -- and not in a fun way -- that has ever happened to the series.
7. Hobbs Reveal – Hobbs is a badass and great at everything, no doubt about that. But we’ve seen him in only limited time behind the wheel. I would love to see this warrior drive more and...get this…be really bad at it. How great would that be? It’s a comedic beat that I think Dwayne Johnson would make very funny. It also gives Tej and Roman another thing to make fun of about Hobbs.

6. Denzel is Tyrese’s Dad – Do the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade thing and make Denzel Washington the father of Roman Pierce while including him in a F&F adventure. Denzel was offered a role in Furious 7 and turned it down. I say try again. Denzel and Tyrese together could be really great, as both are lively actors and adept at action. It also fits into the FAMILY aspect of the series and is a reunion of Denzel with Eva Mendes, his co-star from Out of Time and Training Day. How great would it be if Denzel and Eva hook up again and Monica becomes Roman’s stepmom?
5. Make the Mr. Nobody and Dom Relationship Count – Kurt Russell’s Mr. Nobody was the best new character from Furious 7 and it’s already been said that he’ll come back in the series. I thought the dynamic he had with Dom was fun (their stuff with the Corona and Belgian ale was inspired), so build on that. I like Vin Diesel’s chemistry with Dwayne Johnson a lot, but I like Vin’s with Kurt Russell even more.

4. Slasher Statham – Patrick has correctly pointed out that one of the series’ strengths is how each movie re-invents itself (e.g. Part 1 is Point Break, Fast Five is a heist movie) so let’s make one a slasher movie with Statham’s Deckard Shaw as the boogeyman. He could break out of prison a la Michael Meyers and go after the crew….sort of like how he should have more in Furious 7, which got side-tracked by that weird Djimon Honsou villain that kind of came out of nowhere. This horror version of F&F also fits into my plan to have the team go to Transylvania eventually (Fastsylvania).
3. Scale Back…A Little – I love the over-the-top craziness of the series, but I think Furious 7 got about as ridiculous as it should go. Maybe treat the series like a mix tape and cool it down a notch for a couple of entries, building back up to being crazy nuts.

2. Train up DK – I’m guessing DK will play a bigger role in the series moving forward, almost a replacement Paul Walker. Wouldn’t it be great if Dom became his mentor of sorts? Remember, DK is a troubled 30 year-old teenager☺ It would also allow endless callbacks and comparisons to Paul Walker’s Brian O’Conner, which will help keep his spirit alive in the series going forward.
1. Enter the Dragon Template – The next entry should be a variation of Enter the Dragon or Mortal Kombat in my opinion. It’s perfect. You get a mega mogul holding a competition for the best racer in the world and the F&F crew all participate, but there’s two ripples – 1) It’s not just cars this time, but also motorcycles, speedboats and planes and 2) the mogul is a super villain played by none other than Jean-Claude Van Damme. If the people behind this franchise are reading this, I beg you to make this happen.

Which of these ideas do you like? What would you do next? Also, check out Patrick and Doug’s great podcast on Furious 7 if you haven’t already.

31 comments:

  1. Love the ideas here. Heck, I despised Lucas Black in Tokyo Drift (wanted to punch his smug little face every time he was on screen), but I'm even down with your idea of bringing him back as Tej and Roman's punching bag in a new trio.

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    1. Thanks Kyle! Lucas Black has grown on me over the years and with re-watches of Tokyo Drift but I can understand where you're coming from.

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  2. Adam, we know that Brian O'Connor is your favorite character in the series. Since he's gone now, who's your favorite of who's left? (My favorite in the series: Tej).

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    1. Probably Hobbs. His line deliveries in FURIOUS 7 were some of my favorite things about the movie.

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    2. The correct answer is Han's ghost.

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    3. I'd be all for Han solo movies; like prequels before the fourth Fast and Furious.

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    4. Disney is already making Han Solo movies.

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    5. If they cast Sung Kang though....then you'd have something.

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    6. I thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated that Han Solo joke.

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    7. Fun fact: Sung Kang's character's name in the series is really Han Seoul-Oh. Like, for real, really. I JUST BLEW YOUR MIND.

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  3. The movies need 150% more Hobbs. I hope he gets more screen time in future installments, especially considering how much I've been hearing he gets sidelined in 7. Dwayne Johnson and Tyrese are my two favorite characters in the franchise at this point.

    I also LOVE the idea of adding Dan Stevens to the mix. He would surely make for an excellent addition to the franchise.

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    1. I love the Dan Stevens idea, but does anybody else feel like he's going to end up doing James Bond at some point? (This might just be my own dream) So he either wouldn't do a FF movie because of scheduling or they wouldn't let him or something. Obviously this is all speculation on my part.

      Also totally love the Enter the Dragon idea, including Van Damme. But, I cannot stomach the idea of JCVD losing a fight. It just doesn't make any sense. Dom Torreto cannot take him down. I like symbol.

      But a competition movie could also bring the movie back to its roots of racing cars on the ground, while still allowing the room for all of the crazy stuff to still happen.

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    2. The big reveal in "8NTER THE FURIOUS" is that Dom and JCVD have the sem mudder.

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  4. I definitely agree with bringing Mendes back, and also with the notion of scaling things down a bit. Fast Five was like the Avengers of the franchise, with Six and Seven effectively serving as one big sequel released in two parts. In this analogy, making a few "solo" movies could provide a welcome respite, with Dom possibly moving into a mentor role for DK, or a Rock/Mendes buddy-cop adventure.

    Also, the Enter the Dragon template idea is kind of brilliant.

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  5. Its only a matter of time before they are racing in Transformers and fighting the robots from Pacific Rim

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  6. Just got back from watching this and for the most part had a blast - they're always just a bit too long and yeah, I wish they had've kept the focus on Statham but I guess they needed the Djimon stuff because helicopters/predator drones. I like how they handled Paul Walker's departure from the series in theory (btw, kind of a big spoiler right there in the column teaser, no?) but the execution was a little weird.

    I think these are all great ideas - particularly Hobbs being a bad driver, love that - but I'm not sure my interest in this series will survive Paul Walker's absence and I kinda wish they'd just call it quits. I walked out of FF6 excited for the next one - this time I feel like I finished something. Time will tell I guess - maybe Fastsylvania will pull me back in!

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    1. The spoiler is on me. Adam submitted the column with the spoiler warning as his before-the-jump tease and I made the decision to flip it. I thought the language was vague enough that it could mean anything. I assume no one thinks he's continuing with the series?

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    2. No biggie, I'm not the spoilerphobe I used to be and yeah, I knew he wasn't continuing with the series, I just wasn't sure how they'd handle it - I tried to assume "retired" could mean anything but it did tip my expectations towards the "drive off into the sunset" ending which I'm glad they went with. I look forward to listening to the rest of the podcast to get the rest of your guys's feelings - I liked it but it left me feeling melancholy instead of my usual furious.

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    3. I liked FURIOUS 7 but I feel the same way Sol. I think I'll return to this one less than some of the others just because of it's more difficult to have fun with it based on the circumstances of its making.

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  7. Nice article Adam, I agree btw on some JCVD casting, dude can act and was the best thing in the Expendables franchise. I wouldnt mind if James Wan came back to direct the next one (although dude calm down on the overcutting action scenes a bit) but the dream director is Gareth Evans of The Raid fame. Imagine what he could do on a Fast N Furious budget.


    Also yes Hobbs should just take over as the leader in next movie, Vin Diesel may have been the weakest character for me in Furious 7.

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    1. I'm sort of hoping James Wan doesn't come back (just because I'd rather him do more original horror). I like him as a director but I would much rather someone like you said (Gareth Evans) takes over. I doubt it would happen but how great would a Tarantino directed F&F movie be?

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  8. How great would it be if Ryan Gosling's character from Drive showed up in Furious 8? Introduce him for the first half of the movie as a mysterious driver who all we see is his car but never him. And just as the FF team is in the process of robbing like three casinos in one day, Ryan Gosling's character drives in and robs them all before the team can. Then half of the movie can be Roman and Tej following clues and tracking the mysterious driver down while the rest of the team, who has been framed for robbing the casinos, has to deal with the fallout from from the villainous mob boss who owns the casinos (played by Robert De Niro!)

    Then get this, Roman and Tej finally track Ryan Gosling's character down and he is actually Brian O'Connor's brother! He then helps the rest of the team fight the Vegas mob in the third act.

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  9. Number 10 might be happening
    http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/04/06/fast-and-furious-8-rumor-eva-mendes-wanted-back

    It's still 'reportedly' but at least it's out there.

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    1. Yeah, I saw that. Fingers crossed that it happens.

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  10. I really enjoyed F7, bar a few criticisms here and there, with Ramsey & 'God's Eye' and the horrendous lack of Hobbs being the main two criticisms. Ramsey's character did little for me, apart from annoying me. The actress herself is beautiful and talented no doubt, but the character was hopefully just a filler. The God's Eye thing was okay at first, but the more involved it became in the plot, the less and less I cared about it. It made me feel like I was watching James Bond rather than Fast & Furious at points.

    Hobbs is my favorite character in the franchise now, no doubt about it. I do like that they humanized him a little by giving him a kid, but I want to see more of Hobbs - whether it's on the battlefield or whoever he is at home, his character needs to be brought to the forefront now. Also, the idea of the big bad Hobbs being a Sunday driver or gives me a chuckle. Dwayne Johnson's comedic timing would make that a hoot to watch, I think.

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  11. Listen, I have the perfect plot already outlined for the next Fast and Furious Movie.

    As we know, with Paul Walker's passing, Paul can not return to these movies, meaning Vin Diesel will be the main attraction; and with the films growing ever larger in scope, there is pretty much no where left to go at this point, except into space. (This has been noted repeatedly in the Podcast.)

    But what villain could possibly provide a challenge to Vin? The man is apparently invincible, have survived gun shots, a tumbling bus, a one on one fight with the Rock, and even a battle with a tank where he cushioned a fall, from something like 3 stories up, by crumpling the front end of a car. No force on earth seems capable of Killing or Containing this man.

    Obviously, the only enemy that would stand even a chance against Vin's character is Vin Diesel himself, and so I present to you:

    FF8: The Fast and The Furyan!

    Where Dominic Toretto and his friends will face their greatest challenge yet, when Earth in invaded by Richard B. Riddick, an army of necromancers, a smaller army of space bounty hunters, and some sort of CGI monster that eats Tyrese before getting punched in the face repeatedly by the Rock and then exploded with the satellite laser gun from Akira for some reason, probably while being distracted by a super sexy mid-drift.

    Which brings me to my plans for FF9, Fast and Furious, Tokyo Midrift!. It's porn.

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