Vin Diesel is taking total control to ensure Fast & Furious ‘Fast X’ isn’t ‘too European’ & staying true to its roots
VIN Diesel has taken total control of the new Fast & Furious movie to make sure it isn’t “too European” and the franchise stays true to its muscle car roots, an insider has told The U.S. Sun.
Action hero Vin, 55, and the rest of the team are gearing up for an ultra-ambitious marketing campaign for Fast X ahead of its release in May.
With newcomers Brie Larson and Jason Momoa set to star alongside Vin, the movie promises to be the most expensive installment in the wildly successful franchise since it launched over 20 years ago.
Pressure to deliver yet another hit led to the departure of longtime Fast & Furious director Justin Lin following what was described at the time as a “major disagreement” between him and Vin.
Lin was replaced at the helm by Frenchman Louis Leterrier, whose previous work includes the Jason Statham vehicle The Transporter and Edward Norton’s turn as The Incredible Hulk in 2008.
But a well-placed Hollywood source tells The U.S. Sun that although Leterrier, 49, directed the new Fast movie, studio execs at Universal have been more than happy to treat it as Vin’s baby.
Read More Film
The insider said: “These are Vin's movies and he makes a lot of the big decisions that in other franchises, the actual director would make.
“People forget that Vin dabbled in directing early in his career and has a real handle on it.
“He's making sure Louis isn't making the movie 'too European' and keeping everything connected to the franchise's muscle car and action roots.
“Vin has the full support of the studio on this - as long as these movies keep making money.”
Most read in Entertainment
SUPER BOWL TRAILER
California-born Vin - whose real name is Mark Sinclair - kick-started his career by writing, directing, producing, and performing in the short film Multi-Facial in 1995.
The short, which Vin even wrote the score for, is said to have caught the eye of Hollywood legend Steven Spielberg, who later cast Vin in his World War II epic Saving Private Ryan.
In 1997 Vin followed up on Multi-Facial with his first feature film Strays, which he also wrote, directed, produced, and starred in.
Despite going on to land numerous big hits with XXX and The Chronicles of Riddick, he has become best known for portraying Fast & Furious lead character Dominic Toretto since the first movie was released in 2001.
The franchise is the biggest in Universal’s history and has grossed over $6billion at the box office.
When Lin was replaced as director in April last year, sources told The Hollywood Reporter that Fast X’s budget was “creeping upwards of the $300 million mark.”
That was without any of the marketing and publicity costs, which will include a trailer at the Super Bowl on February 12.
'DOWN TO THE WIRE'
The U.S. Sun’s source explained that preparations for the marketing of the movie will go down to the wire due to how the Fast & Furious films are made.
The insider revealed that one of the quiet innovations of the series so far has been to crash as few cars as possible while staging and filming the intricate action scenes.
Instead, the makers of Fast & Furious rely on computer effects to preserve the vehicles it uses.
The source said: "Tom Cruise's last few Mission: Impossible movies have a deal with BMW that supplies an almost unlimited number of vehicles to the production for Tom to drive in chases and really crash the hell out of them, for real, with only minimal financial consequences.
“Now, that technique has allowed Tom to do things like have a trailer in theaters for Mission: Impossible 7 more than a year before the movie comes out.
“Vin does things completely differently because he personally hates seeing these beautiful cars get repeatedly destroyed, and for a long time now the series has mostly relied on CGI effects for their biggest moments of automotive demolition.
Read More on The US Sun
“That puts pressure on the marketing and takes things down to the wire on things like trailers and TV spots like what they're planning for the Super Bowl.
“Any time you see a finished clip from this movie, it's fresh out of the oven and they will be working on all of these effects until the very last minute."
