RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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See the full story · 3 sourcesIn the high-octane, higher-stakes world of street-car racing and international intrigue, it’s only natural that the people behind the wheel should feel some kind of way before the (nuclear arms) race is over. It’s the existential question behind the entire Fast & Furious franchise: If you’re not a sobbing mess by the end of life’s big race/fight against a cyberterrorist codenamed Cipher, were you even driving/thwarting? In keeping with this ethos, emotions are running high for the eleventh and purportedly final entry in the Universal franchise, even before filming has begun. As franchise star and executive producer Vin Diesel told Variety at Monday night’s 25th-anniversary screening of The Fast And The Furious , Fast Forever will be an absolutely devastating affair.
“We start shooting in December, if I can make good on the request from the studio,” Diesel said. “I’m in a good place, though. I had to go through four sets of writers, four years of development, to get to something that I felt would be worthy of a finale. And when I read the script a couple of weeks ago, [I cried].”
Indeed, weeping after reading a finely calibrated screenplay, much like cracking the hood of a turbocharged racer only to find the engine in fine working order, is healthy. It’s said that Donald Sutherland was inconsolable after reading Alvin Sargent’s shooting script for Ordinary People , a feeling Diesel can no doubt relate to, as we can only assume from his equally vulnerable address to the screening audience, who were just as eager as Diesel to go zoom-zoom and boo-hoo: “I’m going to tell you something personal,” he said. “[After] I read the script, halfway through, one tear. By the end of the script that we crafted and worked so hard to make right for you after four years, I was crying. I couldn’t hold it back, and I had to tell everyone. And my sister said, ‘No more crying, bro.’ So I just want to say that sometimes, even the toughest guys in the world need to cry.” And should Fast Forever hit the starting line in December, soon, we will all feel the rumbling thunder of a shattering masterwork racing toward us.
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