Fast Forever’s Budget Issues Prove Fast & Furious Can’t Outspend Its Story Problems

Fast Forever‘s budget issues highlight a problem with the franchise as a whole. It’s time for the Fast and Furious franchise to prioritize story again.

After more than 25 years, Dominic Toretto and his family are saying goodbye to the Fast franchise in Fast Forever. Louis Leterrier is scheduled to direct from a screenplay by Michael Lesslie. Universal has dated the film for March 17, 2028. However, the film is running into problems over the budget.

The previous Fast and Furious movie, Fast X, was one of the most expensive movies ever made, with an estimated budget of $378 million. After the movie underperformed at the box office, bringing in $714 million worldwide, Universal reportedly won’t make another Fast movie unless the budget comes back to around $200 million.

Alan Ritchson, who starred in Fast X, recently spoke about the franchise’s financial issues.

“There’s just a lot of obstacles. It’s expensive to make. It’s too expensive. It doesn’t make a ton of sense,” Ritchson said on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. “There’s a more efficient way to shoot those shows. And so there has to be a way to show restraint, while also honoring the fact that this world has expanded to something humongous. We are at the crossroads of something very hard to figure out, and everybody’s figuring it out.”

Fast Forever needs real stakes rather than spectacle

It’s difficult to argue against the financial success of the Fast and Furious movies — the franchise has grossed over $7 billion. However, the last few movies have drifted away from what made this franchise special.

Since Furious 7, the Fast Saga has become more of a superhero franchise with unrealistic stakes and consequences. In Fast X, the movie ends with Dominic Toretto driving down the side of a dam to escape an explosion. In F9, Tej and Roman flew into space on a modified Pontiac Fiero. I can suspend my disbelief, but some of these sequences are beyond ridiculous.

For Fast Forever to succeed, it must have realistic stakes. The plot of the first movie revolved around street racing and a conflicted cop trying to catch criminals. The spectacle was the electrifying racing scenes. That’s a far cry from the “save the world” plot of the latter movies. Implementing a more grounded approach in Fast Forever could bring back fans of the original who later abandoned the franchise.

Fast Forever should still have some spectacle; However, realistic stakes must ground the action.

Source: Comingsoon.net