Looking at it now, the conflict between Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson on the set of the Fast & Furious movies was almost inevitable. After all, when the chrome-domed tank top enthusiast made the decision to reinvent the brand as a globetrotting series of increasingly preposterous heist thrillers, one of his first orders of business was to recruit an A-list action star who was much bigger and arguably balder, one that had even dubbed himself ‘Franchise Viagra’ with the box office receipts to prove it in his back pocket.
Despite initially bonding, presumably over their shared hatred of sleeves, tensions grew to the point where it was laughably obvious that Diesel and Johnson never stood next to each other in The Fate of the Furious, with their scenes blatantly composited together. There was plenty of social media mud-slinging as well, but based on their recent interactions, it looks as though they’ve made up and Johnson is now surely set to return for the two-part finale to The Fast Saga.
Looking further ahead, though, and sources close to WGTC – the same ones who told us Ryan Reynolds had a secret cameo in Hobbs & Shaw well before it released, and that Han would be back in Fast & Furious 9 – say that the next bout of cinematic d*ck measuring will see Hobbs & Shaw 2 look to emulate the parent films’ signature action sequences by upping the ante. Of course, F9 is already poised to finally head into outer space, but from what we’re told, The Rock wants future installments in his spinoff series to have a bigger budget and offer up more action and spectacle than what audiences have seen in the Fast & Furious pics up to this point.
That’d make sense, too, as once the main franchise has come to an end, Hobbs & Shaw will presumably become the primary drawing card for the expanded universe, and it’ll face a real challenge in continuing to raise the bar for a sprawling mythology that’s been characterized by an increasingly loose grasp on things like logic, physics, gravity and common sense.