The Fast and the Furious franchise is one of the most successful film franchises of all time. In fact, with a $5 billion gross, it’s Universal Studios' most successful film franchise ever, and it’s the sixth-most successful film franchise in history. The first film, The Fast and the Furious, came out in 2001, and 17 years later the series is still going strong. Even with lead actor Paul Walker’s death, the franchise continues to bring in huge amounts of money with every release.
The first film in the franchise had a huge cultural influence at the time—everyone seemed to be driving around with neon on their cars, carbon fiber hoods, body kits, and custom suspensions after the film’s release. Everyone wanted to be like Paul Walker and Vin Diesel. The movies were the epitome of awesome. The film is a considered a classic by many, as it single-handedly brought street racing to the forefront and to mainstream audiences.
With eight movies and two short films produced in the series thus far (with a ninth feature film on the way in 2019), it’s no wonder that there are plenty of behind the scenes moments that a lot of fans don’t know about (except maybe diehard “fastards”), but might like to know. Here are 6 little-known things that really happened behind the scenes of the Fast and Furious franchise.
6
THE TANK SEQUENCE IN THE SIXTH FILM WAS NOT CGI
Throughout the Fast and Furious franchise, every film is trying to outdo the last. They’re always trying to push the envelope on crazy stunts and scenes, and many of these huge scenes aren’t even CGI—they’re made with practical stunts. Such is the case in Fast & Furious 6 (2013). This film was initially going to be split into two installments, with the first one titled “The Fast,” and the second titled “The Furious.” The tank sequence in the middle of the film would have been the end of “The Fast,” and the plane sequence would have capped off “The Furious.”
Originally the tank sequence was supposed to take place in the streets of London, and the production team planned to recreate 12 city blocks on a soundstage to shoot what they needed. (London officials wouldn’t grant them access to city roads since the Olympics were happening there at the same time the movie was shot.)
The sequence was moved to Spain, where they secured free reign to shoot on a newly built and unopened stretch of highway in Tenerife in the Canary Islands. 90% of the shots of the tank were the real deal—other shots used a lightweight tank with a fake turret, and others still used a truck outfitted with fake tank treads to get low angle shots.
5
FERRARI WOULDN’T LET THEM USE THEIR PRIZED POSSESSION
The Fast and Furious franchise has some of the coolest supercars ever put to film. It makes sense when you consider that the franchise is all about awesome cars going super fast. Well, one of the rarest and most expensive cars that appear in the franchise is the Lykan HyperSport. It appears in Furious 7 as the car that held the God’s Eye Chip. The HyperSport is a supercar built by W Motors in the United Arab Emirates, as a collaboration between Lebanese, French, and Italian engineers. Production of the car was limited to just seven units, and it sells for $3.4 million, making it the third-most expensive production car built to date. It’s also the first sports car to be designed indigenously in the Middle East. Basically, the production team did a pretty good job of securing this one.
But originally, they wanted to use a coveted Ferrari LaFerrari, which is the ultimate supercar in the Ferrari lineup (according to Ferrari itself). The LaFerrari isn’t even for sale in the usual sense: Drivers who want to own one must already be Ferrari owners and must be invited from the company. And unfortunately, the Fast and Furious franchise didn’t meet the requirements. According to car coordinator Dennis McCarthy: “Believe me, they tried. But Ferrari was like, ‘No thanks, we don’t need the press, our cars sell themselves.’”
4
PAUL WALKER’S BROTHERS PLAYED HIS ROLE IN THE SEVENTH FILM
This is a pretty sad tidbit but a truth among many great franchises—for instance in the newest Star Wars film coming, Carrie Fisher will have to be CGI edited into different parts of the movie that weren’t finished filming before she passed away. The concept is the same here with Paul Walker. We won’t go too much into his tragic accident, other than to say that Paul Walker died in the middle of 2013 during the filming of Furious 7 (2015). As the lead protagonist and a great all-around guy, this put a serious damper on the production of the entire franchise and put finishing the franchise in jeopardy. But Hollywood finds a way to go on when there’s money on the line…
After leaving part of the film unfinished after Walker’s death, Vin Diesel and director James Wan added a lengthy tribute to Walker at the end of the film. And to finish it, Walker’s brothers, Caleb and Cody, stood in for their brother. The filmmakers used special effects and old footage of Paul to digitally add his face to his brothers’ body for certain shots, particularly in the tribute scene. With a little silver lining, Walker’s character thankfully doesn’t die in the franchise but goes on to retire at the end of the film to live his life with Dom’s sister, Mia Toretto (Jordana Brewster).
3
THE DRIFT SCENES IN THE FILMS WERE PRACTICAL STUNTS, NOT CGI
As mentioned earlier briefly during the “tank” entry, most of the big stunts in the Fast and Furious franchise were not done with CGI, but were actually made using practical stunts. This seems dangerous (and it is), but the production team managed to hire some of the best in the business. For instance, in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, which unsurprisingly included more drifting than the others, professional drivers performed the drifting stunts.
As reported by Sports Compact Car, Rhys Millen, his father Rod, and a handful of other famous rally and drift racers consistently performed amazing drift sequences for the movie. Also, the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VIII and two of the VW R32s were converted from all-wheel drive to rear-wheel drive so they could drift properly. Toyota also donated 4,000 tires for the movie, and roughly 2,000 of those were used, while Rays Engineering donated 170 of its Volk Racing wheels, too. So you see, everyone came together to make this awesome spectacle look right.
That isn’t to say that Tokyo Drift wasn’t CGI-heavy. It was. It had more CGI than any other film in the franchise and is still widely regarded as the weakest of the bunch. Even so, over 100 cars were destroyed during production, and the heavily-critiqued use of CGI led director Justin Lin to push the rest of the films to use more and more practical effects.
2
DENZEL WASHINGTON WAS ALMOST IN THE FRANCHISE
How cool would that have been? Yes, the Academy Award winner and worldwide fan favorite, Denzel Washington, was almost in the Fast and Furious franchise’s world. But it was not meant to be. There are still some very big names in the franchise: from Vin Diesel to the Rock to Jason Statham. And with the reputation the franchise has, and the money that’s gone into it and that it’s made at the box office, it’s not surprising that other major names would leap to star in the films. But Denzel didn’t leap.
Washington was reportedly approached for a part in Fast 7, which would have then led to a larger part in the next film in the franchise. But Denzel turned it down. The role itself was unspecified, other than calling it a “mysterious major role” for the film. But anyone who’s seen Furious 7 knows who took Washington’s place: Kurt Russell, in the role of Mr. Nobody. In the film, Russell is a government covert ops team leader who teams up with Dom and the crew as they deal with the bad guy Deckard Shaw. It’s a shame that Denzel Washington turned down the role, but Kurt Russell is awesome in his own right and he did the job justice.
1
VIN DIESEL AND THE ROCK HAVE BAD BLOOD
This last little-known fact is one that goes beyond just on-screen. Apparently two of the biggest names in the franchise—Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson—had some serious problems on set with each other. In Fate of the Furious, Diesel and Johnson’s characters were up against each other, but barely share any screen time together, reportedly because the actors can’t stand each other. The Rock went to Instagram to say that “Some [male co-stars] conduct themselves as stand up men and true professionals, while others don’t. The ones that don’t are too chicken sh*t to do anything about it anyway. Candy a***s.”
Both of the actors have spun the feud as a positive difference of opinion between two “alpha” males, but there’s some bad blood brewing there, for sure…
And maybe it isn’t Vin Diesel who’s at fault here, because apparently, Johnson is also feuding with Tyrese Gibson, who plays Roman Pearce. Gibson, like Johnson, has aired some of his issues via Instagram, when he posted begging Johnson not to let his spin-off affect the filming and release of Fast 9. After that, Gibson stated he wouldn’t appear in the ninth film if the Rock did, and he tossed his “candy ass” words back in his face. Apparently, the feud is over, and Gibson let it go, but no apology was ever given between the two.