The Rock And Jason Statham Officially Getting Fast & Furious Spinoff Movie

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Jason Statham stole the show in eighth installment of the Fast & Furious franchise, The Fate of the Furious, which has prompted Universal Studios to move forward with a spinoff centered on the two actors’ characters.

Names involved with the franchise have previously expressed desires to further the franchise with standalone. Recently, reports surfaced claiming Fate of the Furious included a scene between Johnson’s Luke Hobbs character and Statham’s Deckard Shaw which would have launched the expectation of the spinoff but franchise star and executive producer had the scene removed from the theatrical cut.

Regardless, the studio has elected to move forward with the new movie.

The Johnson and Statham spinoff will be scripted by Chris Morgan, the chief franchise writer whose most recent effort outlined a film which beat Star Wars: The Force Awakens‘ opening weekend numbers at the box office, globally.

“I think there’s always been conversations for that,” Fate of the Furious producer Hiram Garcia told ComicBook.com about a potential Luke Hobbs spinoff prior to the recent films release. “The scheduling of it all is a challenge but there are always talks about a potential spinoff movie and what we can do with it. DJ and I were just talking about that the other day – our visions for it. There’s a real goal for that and we can have enough fun with that where we’ve earned that now with the audience. He’s a beloved enough character that they’d love to see what a ride with him would be like in his world. We have tons of history that we’ve crafted for this guy that we continue to sprinkle in throughout the movies. You’ll see a little bit more in this movie but ultimately we want to take that ride and spin him off and have some fun with it.”

The original report from Deadline says that the idea for the film is for “Johnson’s US Diplomatic Security Agent Luke Hobbs to form an unlikely alliance with Statham’s Decker Shaw, for a movie that could conceivably be made while they are figuring the next Fast film.”

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The Fate of the Furious is now playing in theaters.