Longtime Fast & Furious franchise writer-producer Chris Morgan says “absolutely nothing” is out of consideration for future sequels, including an oft-joked-about trip to space.
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“Nothing’s out of the question,” Morgan told Polygon when asked about a space-set Fast & Furious. “Absolutely nothing. It just has to be cool and it has to be good. You know, that’s the thing.”
But for Morgan, who penned the franchise’s first spinoff — the larger than life Hobbs & Shaw, teaming Dwayne Johnson’s Luke Hobbs and Jason Statham’s Deckard Shaw against cyber-genetically enhanced villain Brixton (Idris Elba), the self-described “black Superman” — outlandishness must always be grounded, at least, in character.
“I have one internal regulator on all this stuff. I’m a big action guy and a big action fan and I love physics too, by the way,” Morgan said.
“I think the limiter for me is that we will bend to physics and never outright break it-break it. So how do you determine that? Well, for me, while you’re watching the movie and while you’re watching the action sequence, does something happen that’s so physically impossible or absurd that it breaks faith with the audience? That you suddenly can no longer enjoy the movie and you don’t care about the characters because of that breakage.”
Morgan pointed to a climactic scene from Fast & Furious 6, which finds Gisele (Gal Gadot) and Han (Sun Kang) pursuing a plane down a lengthy runway before takeoff — an action sequence that led to expressions of incredulity because the runway would have been nearly 30 miles long.
“[That’s] something fun to think about on the ride home,” Morgan said.
“But during the moment were people thinking: do they really want to bring that plane down? Are they worried about Han, Gisele, and everybody? I think they are. That means that it’s a good candidate for a set piece. So we’re pretty strict on that. I would say nothing is off limits as long as we can stay on the right side of keeping the audience engaged.”
Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw opens August 2. Universal Pictures has dated Fast & Furious 9 May 22, 2020 and Fast & Furious 10 April 2, 2021.
