It’s been 19 years since the first instalment of The Fast and the Furious franchise came out. The second film, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift released in 2006 followed by Fast & Furious which released in 2009 and then we had The Fate of the Furious which came out in 2017. There has been a spin-off film and an animated web television series. The soundtrack albums from the films have been a huge hit and it currently ranks as the tenth-highest-grossing film series of all time with a combined gross of five billion dollars.
But we already knew that.
What you didn’t know, perhaps, is that at one point there was a rumour that Eminem was going to play the role of Brian O’Conner.
Below, we catalogue a few other things you probably didn’t know about the Fast and the Furious series.
The Wall Street Journal, in a report, states that at one time, Vin Diesel suggested that they “assign numerical values to every move—head butt, roundhouse kick, body slam—so he could calculate a total and determine if the two men were getting pummeled evenly”. This was, of course, done in a bid to ensure that “none of the leads comes out looking like a loser”. In fact, according to producers and crew members, Jason Statham actually negotiated an agreement with the studio about the beatings he received on the screen.
Diesel’s sister works as a producer on the films and polices the number of punches he receives.
Wow, talk about fragile masculinity.
Variety reports that a few days before Paul Walker died, Diesel spoke to him about what would happen if Diesel passed away. “If I do die, let them know what kind of brother I’ve been to you,” he told Walker. Diesel and his wife had a baby girl in 2015 and named her Pauline, a homage to Paul Walker.
Jordana Brewster, who essays the character of Mia, had to get a driver’s license before starring in the film as she didn’t have one. Askmen reports that she didn’t have any fun while learning to drive in New York City.
A 1998 article in Vibe about NYC street racer Rafael Estevez was the idea behind the original The Fast and the Furious.
Denzel Washington was offered a role in the 7th instalment but turned it down!
The name of the first movie was going to be Redline but it got changed to The Fast and the Furious. There was a 2007 car movie starring Eddie Griffin called Redline.
