Fast and Furious Franchise Transitioning to Heist Themed Films

With the fifth film in the Fast and Furious series set to release domestically on Friday, and it expected to draw huge returns, Universal is planning far ahead for where to take the franchise. Fast Five is being described as the “transitional movie” that will shift the series from being centered on car culture and street racing to becoming crafted heist stories that just contain high octane car action.

Universal Chairman Adam Fogelson: “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….we’ve absolutely left perfect room for where we want to go with this franchise. I don’t want to give away too much, but there are a lot of surprises at the end of Fast Five involving one of the biggest characters of the previous movies which will set up the franchise now as a series of heist action films.”

The sixth film already is being scripted with plans to bring back all the major players including Dwayne Johnson who debuts in Fast Five. Justin Lin is expected to return as director as well.