It’s tough to believe anything Vin Diesel says about Fast Forever, the 11th, and supposedly final, movie in the long-running franchise. He’s been saying for years that it’s about to begin shooting, but inevitably, nothing gets out of the starting gate. Perhaps that’s about to change, but we only have Diesel’s word to go by. Last night, on the red carpet celebrating the 25th anniversary of The Fast & the Furious (!!!), Diesel said that filming will finally begin in December.
Hmph, we’ll see about that.
Diesel made the claim to Variety, while also acknowledging the problems they’ve had getting the script together. Y’know, that script that made him cry it was so good?
“We start shooting in December, if I can make good on the request from the studio. I’m in a good place, though. I had to go through four sets of writers, four years of development, to get to something that I felt would be worthy of a finale. And when I read the script a couple of weeks ago, [I cried].”
By “make good”, Diesel means Universal wanting him to trim the budget by $140M. It’s a problem co-star Alan Ritchson, who is returning for Fast Forever, recently said was a pretty big hurdle.
Diesel elaborated on the lengthy development struggle, but says it was all worth it because of Michael Leslie’s emotional screenplay…
“I’m going to tell you something personal,” he said. “It was after four different writers, four years of development, and after I read the script, halfway through, one tear. By the end of the script that we crafted and worked so hard to make right for you after four years, I was crying. I couldn’t hold it back, and I had to tell everyone. And my sister said, ‘No more crying, bro.’ So I just want to say that sometimes, even the toughest guys in the world need to cry.”
Louis Leterrier, who took over for franchise director Justin Lin on Fast X, is expected to return. However, he recently admitted that he didn’t know much about it and hadn’t even read the script. He was busy completing work on his Netflix film, The Last House, which opened a couple of weeks ago.
Fast X ended on, what else, an explosive cliffhanger with Dominic Toretto and his young son. So they kind of have to do another one just to wrap up the story and send everyone on their merry way. For now, Fast Forever is expected to open on March 17th 2028. We’ll see if it can hit that target.
Vin Diesel says “Fast Forever,” the 11th and final mainline film in the series, starts shooting in December. https://t.co/sX845k7xvi pic.twitter.com/XRH3q9Kp72
— Variety (@Variety) August 18, 2026
