LOS ANGELES — Vin Diesel is back in the new trailer for Universal's "Fast X," the first of two planned "final" films for Dominic Toretto & Co. But where do you go after you've taken a $6 billion action franchise about L.A. street racers all the way to space?
In the "Fast" saga, you dig up your greatest hits: supercharged set pieces, explosions galore, car races, familiar faces, new friends and a raging new villain — played by Jason Momoa — with a secret vendetta. And, of course: #family.
And for those among us who just want to glimpse the franchise's signature physics-defying action, there's also Dom Toretto at the wheel driving into the sky fighting two helicopters at the same time.
"You wanted to return to the streets of L.A., you wanted to return to racing and what that feels like, you wanted to return to the cars that made this franchise what it is," Diesel told fans Thursday night at a "Fast X" event at L.A. Live, where he led a brief chant of his own name ("Diesel, Diesel, Diesel") before the four-minute trailer was unveiled. "Fast X" hits theaters May 19.
A one-minute version will air during Sunday's Super Bowl, Diesel added.
The producer-star was joined at the lavish event by "Fast" co-stars Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges and Sung Kang, who skipped down memory lane revisiting their long tenures in the franchise and teased "Fast X," the 10th sequential film in the series and the 11th overall "Fast and Furious" flick.
As one of Hollywood's biggest ongoing franchises, the "Fast" films have seen plenty of public and private conflicts — the most recent example being last year, when longtime franchise architect Justin Lin quit "Fast X" a week into production, reportedly over creative differences.
Lin's name went unmentioned during the "Fast X" trailer event, but trailers for the five installments he directed — "The Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift" (2006), "Fast & Furious" (2009), "Fast Five" (2011), "Fast & Furious 6" (2013) and "F9" (2021) — played during the hourlong program recapping "Fast" history.
Praising Diesel's passion for the films, Rodriguez referred with seemingly unplanned candor to the challenges of keeping the blockbuster franchise going.
"It's hard, because there's lots of cooks in the kitchen," she said. "When you've got a franchise that makes that much money, everybody's got an opinion about it, everybody's trying to cut corners and doesn't want to pay this one this much and that one that much … but at the end of the day, it all comes down to story. And if we mess that dance up, it's all over."
Later, Gibson compared Diesel to "Jesus himself," jokingly thanked fans for risking their lives to see "F9" "at the height of a pandemic," revealed the cast group text chains that go "flying" in moments of infighting and pointed out Lin's replacement, Louis Leterrier ("The Transporter," "The Incredible Hulk"), in the crowd to welcome him to the "Family."
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