The Fast & Furious franchise is nothing if not dedicated to its own mythology, regularly tying the timeline and continuity in knots for the sake of fan service, and bringing back almost every character to have resonated with audiences even slightly over the last 20 years.
To fill in some of the gaps, the upcoming ninth installment will dive deep into Dominic Toretto’s past, presumably to explain why his long lost brother that’s never been mentioned before has suddenly reappeared and is out for blood, armed with a hugely coincidental set of skills that make him a formidable nemesis for the crew. Sadly, though, Vin Diesel’s 10 year-old son will be playing young Dom, so we won’t be going far back enough to find out whether or not his first word was ‘family.’
Fast & Furious 9 will kick off one last trilogy for the main saga before the gang rides off into the sunset for a final time, and we’re all expecting a Greatest Hits package that’ll see Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham return alongside even more familiar and new faces, with Michael Caine being heavily teased for a role as the patriarch of the Shaw family.
In a recent interview, Diesel was asked about the possibility of Eva Mendes returning as Monica Fuentes as well, and the chrome-domed action star certainly wasn’t ruling it out.
“We’ll just wait for 10. Let’s just say, the fact that you guys know that the studio is saying, ‘We can’t cover all this ground that needs to be covered in just one movie’. You can only imagine what is to come.”
Mendes played the female lead in 2 Fast 2 Furious before reappearing for an uncredited cameo at the end of Fast Five, which looked to be setting her up for a much bigger part in the sequels that never materialized. Fast & Furious is guaranteed to go out with a bang, though, and if the brand is dipping into the back catalogue, then the actress is one of the biggest names left that it could call on.