Vin Diesel gassed up audiences at this year’s FuelFest in California over the weekend, announcing that the next installment in the Fast & Furious franchise will hit the streets in April 2027. Not only that, but it will somehow find a way to bring back Paul Walker’s Brian O’Conner.
Vin Diesel took to the stage to announce that Fast & Furious 11 (Fast X2? Fast XI?) was brought to him by Universal, to which he agreed if certain terms could be met. But these had nothing to do with salary or assuring that his head is bigger than Dwayne Johnson’s on the poster, but rather making die-hard fans happy. “The studio said to me, ‘Vin, can we please have the finale of Fast & Furious April 2027? I said under three conditions: The first is to bring the franchise back to L.A…The second thing was to return to the car culture, to the street racing!…You wanna know what the third thing was?…The third thing was reuniting Dom and Brian O’Conner. That is what you’re gonna get in the finale! Love you!”
The April 2027 release date is reasonable, of course, as is the idea of grounding the Fast & the Furious franchise back in its roots (talk about bringing back physical media!), but how can Vin Diesel expect the writers to bring back Paul Walker? Now, it was done with Furious 7 – which was in production when Walker died in a car accident in November 2013 – by having his brothers, Caleb and Cody, serve as stand-ins and Walker’s face being superimposed on their bodies, but what is the plan for the future? Technology has come a long way in the last dozen years and certainly AI could prove beneficial in this case, but there are some genuine ethical concerns over its usage, especially when it comes to dead celebrities. Or will they go about it in an entirely different way?
What do you think of bringing back Paul Walker’s character for the next Fast & the Furious movie? What do you hope to see in the next installment? Share your thoughts with us below!
