More Fast & Furious behind the scenes bickering.
It’s been recently reported that the date for Fast & Furious 9 has been pushed back a full year from April 19th 2019 to April 10th 2020 leading to one of the “Fast Family” Tyrese Gibson, to take to Instagram to openly lay blame for the delay on the considerably large shoulders of his co-star Dwayne Johnson. Gibson wrote;
“Congratulations to @TheRock and your brother in law aka 7 bucks producing partner @hhgarcia41 for making the fast and the furious franchise about YOU – And like you, DJ even if they call I will not be deleting this post – Gn folks see you in 2020 April #FastFamily right? Nah….. it’s about #TeamDewayne #3yrswill it be worth the wait? #NoShawjust Hobbs will this be another #BayWatch? Guys guys just relax I’m just a passionate film critic.”
It appears that Gibson believed that the upcoming and long mooted Fast and Furious spin off movie, which will see Johnson reprising his role as Hobbs and previously rumoured to also be starring Jason Statham’s character Deckard Shaw, had caused the delay but that might not be the case after all, with Vin Diesel attempting to play peacemaker. Diesel who loves to keep fans of the franchise updated via social media recently took to Instagram;
“I know there has been a lot of speculation as to why the Fast 9 release date was pushed… but it would be unfair to say it is anyone’s fault. As we plot the course to expand the Fast & Furious universe, one must be mindful to take stock of the roads we took to get here. The pillars of authenticity, family and most importantly, our loyal fan’s perspective has been instrumental in procuring success.”
Diesel and Johnson are said to have fallen out during the production of the last Fast movie with Johnson taking to Instagram (honestly this crew needs to delete their accounts) to openly criticise some of the male members of the cast, calling the unnamed actors “Candy Asses”. Although Diesel wasn’t named directly it was widely rumoured to be aimed at him and Johnson and Diesel took turns to do press junkets separately during the film’s pre-release.
Diesel also told fans that the delay will be to the benefit of the ninth movie;
“However, like any vehicle that has run around the globe 8 times, the franchise is in need of maintenance. My good friend and the godfather of Universal, Ron Meyer has granted me the time to do just that. We have some very exciting news to share soon… stay tuned.”
It clearly seems that the franchise will continue and whilst this may just be a clever marketing ploy, the film’s family ethos doesn’t really fit in well with it.