As Fast Forever continues to flap about in the breeze, Vin Diesel takes to Instagram with a cryptic hint that he’s going to become its director. Which will come first, Fast Forever or the awakening of Silicon Valley’s digital AI supergod? At the moment, our money’s on the latter. Over three years on, the sequel ... Fast Forever | With a single word, Vin Diesel hints that he’s taking over as director
As Fast Forever continues to flap about in the breeze, Vin Diesel takes to Instagram with a cryptic hint that he’s going to become its director.
Which will come first, Fast Forever or the awakening of Silicon Valley’s digital AI supergod? At the moment, our money’s on the latter.
Over three years on, the sequel to Fast X remains at large, with repeated script rewrites, Universal apparently being determined to reign in costs, and a bizarre incident where Vin Diesel appeared to hint that production had finally begun. It subsequently turned out that he was filming a football advert that happened to included a Fast And Furious car.
Now Vin Diesel has taken to Instagram again, this time vaguely implying that he might be taking over as director.
“Director… Hmmm…” the actor wrote in a cryptic post, accompanied by a photograph of his character Dominic Torretto’s Dodge Charger.
In theory, it should be Louis Leterrier calling the shots again, having previously taken over from a seemingly exhausted Justin Lin on 2023’s Fast X.
Leterrier recently finished work on his watery Quiet Place-alike, The Last House, streaming now on Netflix.
Theoretically, he could be getting on with Fast Forever’s pre-production as these words are being typed – but there have been signs for a while that something weird is happening.
Diesel had previously said that the latest draft of the Fast Forever's script was so emotionally charged that it made him cry.
When asked what he thought of that screenplay, Leterrier revealed that he hadn’t even read the thing.
In August, Diesel then said that filming on Fast Forever could finally be getting underway this December – but he offered a caveat.
Suggested product
Issue #60 Magazine Bundle (3x Covers: A Scanner Darkly Magazine + 1991 + Roger Deakins)
£14.99
“We start shooting in December, if I can make good on the request from the studio,” he told Variety, coyly.
At present, Leterrier still hasn’t been officially announced as Fast Forever's director; speaking to Polygon in August, he expressed enthusiasm for the franchise, but suggested that there was something going on behind the scenes that he wasn’t at liberty to talk about.
“Well, uh, I’d love to tell you the full truth, but I can’t,” Leterrier said. “There will be an ending, and it’s great. I was very, very lucky to be part of the franchise, and I love Vin and I love Universal. They’re great to work with. So yeah. We’ll see, hopefully.”
Note how Leterrier talks about the franchise in the past tense there: “I was very, very lucky…”
Has Diesel privately been lobbying to take over as director all this time? Or is this another example of the actor using his Instagram to get people talking?
Someday, a book will be written about all the curious turns this film’s production has taken. In the meantime, we’ll bring you more on the Fast situation as it unfolds.
Assuming the AI rapture doesn’t happen first.
