The Fast and Furious film franchise has hit a serious speed bump. The development of the next film(s) coming after Fast X has been hit with numerous delays, with the next installment not arriving until 2026 – three years after the cliffhanger ending to Fast X, and 6 years after production plans on Fast X and its sequel(s) first began. Now, franchise star Vin Diesel is speaking up, and is pointing the finger at Universal Studios for the massive confusion over when the next Fast & Furious film is hitting theaters – and just how many of them we should expect:
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“I got universal in one ear saying we need FastX2 by March 2026! I have Comcast in the other ear saying we need two movies to be the Finale!” Diesel wrote in a recent post caption. “Then the writer on Fast Five sent me this image and said we need to see DOM and HOBBS resolve their differences. I just want to get back to real street racing, practical stunts… and a reunion of that beautiful brotherhood. Happy Thanksgiving…”
Fast X was supposed to be the beginning of an epic endgame for the series, and it left fans hanging on a massive cliffhanger, wondering wether or not Vin Diesel’s Dominic Toretto and his son “Little B” would survive the ruthless ambush by drug lord Dante Reyes (Jason Momoa). Originally, there was a whole plan in place: the series was going to take a detour into a solo film spinoff for Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s lawman Luke Hobbs and Momoa’s Dante, which would see Momoa exit the franchise, as his freaky killer was a bit too much extreme for some execs and viewers. After Dante was gone, Hobbs would supposedly be brought back into the fold for an epic conclusion in Fast and Furious 11, which would be a final standalone story, totally independent of Fast X.
At the start of the year, some insider reporting alleged that the original script for Fast X: Part 2 (by Oren Uziel and Christina Hodson) was being mined for gems to be refitted for Fast 11 as a standalone feature, while Universal was supposedly focused on getting The Rock’s Hobbs movie into production. Since then, it seems the reverse has happened: Diesel spent 2024 hyping up production on Fast XI (sometimes still called Fast X: Part 2), with writer Zach Dean on the script, and Fast X director Louis Leterrier back at the helm. Leterrier even teased a potential release date window of June 2026 – the 25th anniversary of the release of the original Fast and the Furious.
And yet, by end of summer, Fast & Furious star Tyrese Gibson said he was still waiting on a script and a production call timeline – now, Vin Diesel is dropping messages like this one. Once again it feels like Universal’s execs don’t know how to proceed; Diesel and other members of the cast have low-key signaled they’re ready to wrap things up, as they’re not getting any younger; the studio has all the incentive (and manpower, with The Rock) to take one last double-dip into the franchise well. However, unless Fast XI and any spinoff with Hobbs both go into production next year, it seems hard to believe that both get released in theaters by June of 2026.
There is an option C: Fast 11 ends the saga for the main cast of characters – but thrusts the larger franchise universe forward, so that the Hobbs movie follows as both a sort epilogue to the saga, and bridge to a new era of Fast &Furious, following some “next generation” characters or an entirely new bunch.
For now, Fast XI is in development for release in 2026.
