The Rock Celebrates ‘Hobbs & Shaw’s Success at CinemaCon

During the Universal Pictures presentation at CinemaCon yesterday, Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham, and director David Leitch took the stage to promote their upcoming Fast & Furious spinoff film, Hobbs & Shaw. The trailer is being called one of the “biggest, craziest, loudest, and wildest” to ever be screened at the event. Today, Johnson took to Instagram to celebrate the success of the presentation and the “thunderous applause” from the audience.

“Always so cool to earn, ‘thunderous applause’ for our new HOBBS & SHAW trailer. Mahalo to all the press, exhibitors and theater owners for your awesome support. I’m excited to deliver our new trailer to the world in a few weeks. Oh look, I finally got @jasonstatham to smile by telling him to kindly f*ck off,” Johnson wrote. The attached Mashable headline shows Johnson and Statham grinning together at the event.

During the presentation, Johnson spoke about the upcoming film and what audiences can except from the franchise’s first spin-off movie.

“We want to create something that was special,” he said. “But the bottom line is we wanted to make something that is fun.” The actor claims they have created the “biggest, baddest” villain of the series as well as the most fun. The new movie “paid homage to the value systems that have made Fast & Furious such a juggernaut and powerhouse and that’s family,” Johnson added. “We really lean into it in this movie.”

Following Luke Hobbs (Johnson) and Deckard Shaw (Statham), this new movie will be focusing on an alliance between the two characters, who have had a rocky history during their time in the franchise. Hobbs first appeared in Fast Five as a Diplomatic Security Service agent who is tasked with hunting down Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel), Mia Toretto (Jordana Brewster) and Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker). The character eventually learns that our main protagonists are the good guys and joins their crew for the remainder of the franchise.

Shaw entered the films as a villain, initially killing a prominent member of Toretto’s crew in the mid-credits scene for Fast & Furious 6. However, after spending the seventh film as the main antagonist, Shaw returned to number eight as a good guy.

Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw will hit theaters on August 2nd.

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