After the surprise tease at the end of Fast X, Universal is making it official: Dwayne Johnson is back for another Fast and Furious movie.
Johnson will star in an untitled Fast project, Universal and Johnson announced Thursday. Fast mainstay Chris Morgan penned the script. The return is a major reversal for the star who had insisted, repeatedly, that he was done with the action movie series after clashing with Fast headliner Vin Diesel.
The new project is also a franchise return for Morgan, who sat out F9 and Fast X but penned six of the main franchise movies as well as the 2019 spin-off, Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, which starred Johnson and Jason Statham.
Johnson will also produce this Fast project with his Seven Bucks Productions partners Dany Garcia and Hiram Garcia. Interestingly, joining Johnson on the producers list is Fast star and steward Diesel, who will produce with Samantha Vincent via their One Race company. (The producers are clearly taking the franchise’ theme of “family” to heart as Dany Garcia is Johnson’s ex-wife while Hiram Garcia is Dany’s brother and Johnson’s ex-brother-in-law. Samantha Vincent is Diesel’s sister.)
Also producing are Morgan for his Chris Morgan Productions, Jeff Kirschenbaum for Roth/Kirschenbaum Films, and Neal Moritz for Original Film.
This new movie is not a spin-off a la Hobbs and Shaw, nor is it a Fast 11 or Fast 12. Rather, sources say, the movie will act as a bridging chapter between Fast X and Fast 11, more of a Fast X.5, if you will. It is expected to star other Fast actors as well.
But fans shouldn’t get too excited about on an-screen reunion between Johnson and Diesel just yet. Sources also say that Diesel is not expected to star in this side chapter, although nothing is being ruled out for future projects.
In essence, the two conflicting mega-stars have found a way to reunite behind the screen but not on the screen, to return Johnson to the Fast franchise but without returning him to Diesel’s family dinners.
Johnson and Diesel famously clashed on the 2016 set of Fate of the Furious, which sparked Johnson to go public with his displeasure on Instagram, calling out an unnamed male costar. Over the years, he stated multiple times in the press that he would not be returning to the main franchise. “I wish them well on Fast 9. And I wish them the best of luck on Fast 10 and Fast 11 and the rest of the Fast & Furious movies they do that will be without me,” Johnson told The Hollywood Reporter in 2021.
A few months later, Diesel made a public appeal to Johnson to return for Fast X. Again, Johnson said in the press he would not be coming back, telling CNN there was “no chance” he would return after privately telling Diesel such ahead of the co-star’s public overture. “I privately spoke with my partners at Universal as well, all of whom were very supportive as they understand the problem,” said Johnson.
Yet, after Fast X was completed, Johnson was convinced to come back for a cameo. “We reached out to Dwayne and his team, and said, ‘Just come and watch the movie. You have to love the movie first.’ So he came to see the movie and really loved it, and then we started talking,” Fast X filmmaker Louis Leterrier told THR last month.
But in a social media post Thursday, Johnson said the family was back together.
“Last summer Vin and I put all the past behind us. We’ll lead with brotherhood and resolve – and always take care of the franchise, characters & FANS that we love,” wrote Johnson.
The new movie allows Universal to extend the life of a two decade-plus franchise, one that was seemingly supposed to be winding down. Over the course of 10 movies, the franchise has earned over $7 billion at the worldwide box office. And the latest installment, Fast X, opened number one around the world earlier in May with $320 million and became the second biggest global opening of 2023. It crossed the $500 million mark in its second weekend.
Johnson is repped b WME and Gang Tyre.
—Aaron Couch contributed to this story.