First Look at Idris Elba in ‘Fast and Furious’ Spinoff ‘Hobbs & Shaw’ Revealed

Dwayne Johnson has premiered the first look at Thor and Avengers: Infinity War star Idris Elba as gun-toting villain Brixton in Hobbs & Shaw, the first spinoff entry in the long-running Fast and Furious franchise.

You can check Elba out in the Instagram post below:

Elba’s character will “wreak havoc, hell and mayhem” on Diplomatic Security Service agent Luke Hobbs (Johnson) and mercenary Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham), enemies-turned-uneasy allies who must team up and take on the “undefeated” Brixton in what Johnson teases as the “showdown of all showdowns.”

David Leitch (Atomic Blonde, Deadpool 2) directs from a script by Chris Morgan (Furious 7, The Fate of the Furious).

“There are these buddy movies from the ’80s and ’90s like Lethal Weapon and 48 Hours that really speak to me as a filmmaker. They’re ones that made me want to be a filmmaker in the first place. So to see the chemistry [Johnson and Statham] had in the last Fast, and to see the potential that they could be…it was hard not to say yes, and say, ‘Let’s go do this,’” Leitch told IGN of the spinoff, which is keeping plot details under wraps.

Leitch also said the spinoff, hoping to launch its own franchise within the wider Fast and Furious universe, will be “a little bit more grounded because it’s the beginning.”

“It’s an origin story, in a sense. It’s not an origin story, but we’re starting a franchise, so we want it to be a little bit more grounded, a little bit more character-centric,” he told Collider. “We’re going to set up the stakes for these guys and their relationship, but we’re also going to have some great set pieces and some action that you’d expect.”

Hobbs & Shaw opens August 2, 2019.