Fast & Furious has grown from a simple street racing action film to one of the most successful cinema franchises ever, spanning ten films. But slowly the gas in the tank seems to run out, to keep up with the picture. After the franchise highlight “Fast & Furious 7”, parts 8 and 9 and the spin-off “Hobbs & Shaw” already grossed significantly less money and were not so well received by fans and trade press. And that’s still innocent compared to “Fast & Furious 10” aka “Fast X”.
So far he’s mostly attracted attention with negative headlines, because first director Justin Lin left the project during filming and then the budget got more and more out of control – it was an incredible 340 million in November 2022, which is about the price range a Avatar 2.
With such a big budget, “Fast X” has to collect a decent amount of money to avoid losing money – so the cast and crew are already busy building anticipation for the theatrical release. This worked really well for the first trailer, which was eagerly watched after it was released during this year’s Super Bowl. And Michelle Rodriguez’s comments should pour even more gasoline on the fire:
The Letty actress not only praised the new villain Dante and his actor Jason Momoa in the highest notes, but also promised an ending that has it all.
A strong villain…
Dante is out for revenge with a wink and a grin, according to Michelle Rodriguez. Once you saw the movie you would understand what that meant. “I’d say he’s the best male villain we’ve had in the entire franchisebecause of course Charlize is [Theron] the hammer. […] She’s a completely different kind of monster.”
Jason Momoa’s Dante and Charlize Theron’s Cipher can even team up, as both are after Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his family. In Dante’s case, by the way, because he was the son of villain Hernan Reyes, who died in “Fast & Furious 5”.
… and a surprise ending
And at the end of the movie, Rodriguez told the movie magazine : “I believe, people will be very, very surprised and we will see a lot of open mouths towards the end of ‘Fast X’.” That was also her reaction after seeing the film. “I was like ‘Oh my God, what have we done?'”
We can well imagine that Rodriguez is alluding to an open ending or a hefty cliffhanger here. “Fast & Furious 10” is just the first half of a two-part finale before the series would end with “Fast & Furious 11”. So it’s quite possible that Dante (and/or Cipher?) isn’t defeated by the end of “Fast X” and the obligatory family barbecue at the end of the movie has to be cancelled…
“Fast & Furious 10” opens in German cinemas on May 18, 2023. We’ll know more by then…