A production date for Fast Forever still hasn’t emerged, but Vin Diesel has read the script and says it’s the best he’s read in decades. Just a brief update here for Fast Forever – the automotive action sequel that feels as though it’s been in limbo since, well, forever. Over the weekend, series star Vin ... Fast Forever | Vin Diesel says he’s still crying after reading sequel script, calling it the best he’s “read in decades”
A production date for Fast Forever still hasn’t emerged, but Vin Diesel has read the script and says it’s the best he’s read in decades.
Just a brief update here for Fast Forever – the automotive action sequel that feels as though it’s been in limbo since, well, forever.
Over the weekend, series star Vin Diesel took to Instagram with a clip of The Fast And The Furious, which is heading back to cinemas for a 25th anniversary revival on the 21st August.
In an accompanying bit of text, Diesel enthused about the latest draft of the script, written by Michael Lesslie. It is “the best script I’ve read in decades,” Diesel wrote. “I am still crying.”
It’s a very short comment, so here it is in full:
You have no idea… When March 17th 2028 comes… you will thank God you got to see the First one in the theaters this summer. I just read the Fast Forever script by Mike Leslie. It is the best script I have read in decades. I am still crying…
We’ll gloss over the fact that Diesel still can’t spell poor Lesslie’s name correctly.
Read more: The Fast & The Furious at 25 | A franchise stolen on a foundation of stolen DVD players
Previously the screenwriter behind the Assassin’s Creed film adaptation, Hunger Games spin-off The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes, Lesslie faced a potentially challenging scenario when he joined Fast Forever's production earlier this year.
The sequel has had what looks like a revolving door of writers over the past three years, including Christina Hodson and Oren Uziel, who were replaced by Zach Dean, who was in turn replaced by Lesslie.
Diesel previously wrote glowingly about Lesslie’s rewrite earlier this year, also on Instagram.
“Sitting across from Mike Leslie, [sic] hearing what he plans to contribute to the polish of the next chapter, that same feeling returned,” he wrote. “A story with something real beating inside it.”
One of the battles going on behind the scenes, according to several accounts, concerns the sequel’s budget. Fast X cost somewhere north of $378m, and Universal is said to be determined to keep costs reined in for the follow-up. In late July, actor Alan Ritchson said, “There’s a more efficient way to shoot those shows. And so there has to be a way to show restraint, while also honouring 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.”
In dramatic terms, it sounds as though Lesslie has cracked the Fast And Furious code. We’ll have to wait and see whether Universal agrees. As Diesel points out, Fast Forever is less than two years away, assuming it sticks to the release date: 17th March 2028.
We’ll keep you posted as we hear more.
