F9 Director Justin Lin Says He Never Really Left the Fast & Furious Franchise

Four-time Fast & Furious director Justin Lin “never felt like the door was closed” to returning to the Fast Saga, which races back into theaters this summer with Lin’s F9. Lin helmed 2006’s The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift — the first franchise installment without Paul Walker or Vin Diesel in a leading role — before reuniting the cast of 2001’s The Fast and the Furious, including Walker and Diesel, in 2009’s Fast & Furious. After taking the franchise to new speeds with Dwayne Johnson joining the ensemble in 2011’s Fast Five, Lin expected to put the blockbuster series in his rearview mirror with 2013’s Fast & Furious 6.

“I thought I was done with it but even though I was gone, I actually now look back and I don’t think I ever was gone,” Lin told The Associated Press. “I still remember I was in the cutting room on Star Trek Beyond and Vin called me and he’s talking about Dom [Toretto, Diesel’s character] and the state of Dom for two hours. I’m sitting there going, like, what movie am I making? It’s just been a relationship, you know? It’s always been more than just a movie. So when I woke up with this idea I called Vin and the studio and they were like ‘OK, let’s go.’ I never felt like the door was closed.”

Lin previously revealed it was the Fast Family’s relationship with Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) — the ex-villain who killed Han (Sung Kang) in a seemingly fatal car crash when Furious 6 retconned the events of Tokyo Drift — and the ensuing “Justice For Han” fan campaign that helped inspire Lin’s return for a fifth Fast movie, where Kang’s Han returns for the first time since Furious 6 in 2013.

“Han means so much to me because he was a character before Fast & Furious,” Lin told Total Film in 2020, referring to the character’s unofficial origin story in 2002’s Better Luck Tomorrow. “Somebody asked me about Han and Shaw. I was like: ‘Wait, what? Shaw is at the barbecue in 8?’ [laughs] Really, I was so confused. One of the big reasons to come back was I felt like we needed to correct something.”

Lin will direct the previously announced next two sequels in the Fast Saga, an untitled Fast 10 and a Furious 11, which will be the end of the road for the core franchise launched with the original Fast & Furious in 2001.

Vin Diesel’s Dom Toretto is leading a quiet life off the grid with Letty and his son, little Brian, but they know that danger always lurks just over their peaceful horizon. This time, that threat will force Dom to confront the sins of his past if he’s going to save those he loves most. His crew joins together to stop a world-shattering plot led by the most skilled assassin and high-performance driver they’ve ever encountered: a man who also happens to be Dom’s forsaken brother, Jakob (John Cena, the upcoming The Suicide Squad). F9 sees the return of Justin Lin as director, who helmed the third, fourth, fifth and sixth chapters of the series when it transformed into a global blockbuster. The action hurtles around the globe—from London to Tokyo, from Central America to Edinburgh, and from a secret bunker in Azerbaijan to the teeming streets of Tbilisi. Along the way, old friends will be resurrected, old foes will return, history will be rewritten, and the true meaning of family will be tested like never before.

Fast & Furious 9 opens in U.S. theaters on June 25.