Post by Vin Diesel.
It’s fitting – and incredibly painful – that this somber image Vin Diesel just shared from next year’s 7 involves a funeral gathering. After all, the death of co-star Paul Walker (pictured with Diesel) during production cast a shadow of doubt over the future of the franchise. But like any family, the crew pulled together to finish a mission – though one that will have its peaks and valleys (as this photo suggests).
Vin Diesel placed this on his Facebook page, without a description. But it’s safe to assume where the characters from the Fast & Furious universe are. As you likely recall, the sixth Fast & Furious film ended with a death. Han (Sung Kang) is killed in a fiery wreck, and the threat for Fast 7 -- personified by Jason Statham –- is revealed to be the culprit. Here’s a montage of that scene, interspersed with footage from The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift!
And with that scene, the timelines of the Fast & Furious universe finally have been aligned. From what we are hearing, James Wan’s Fast 7 will be a vengeance thriller, with Dom (Vin Diesel) and Brian (Paul Walker) going after the man who killed Han (Sung Kang). But first, there will be a funeral, as is indicated above. Diesel and the late Paul Walker are seen with Ludacris and Tyrese, two longstanding members of the Fast family. It is a downbeat note, a chance to say goodbye.
I imagine that we will be getting ample opportunities to say goodbye with Fast 7, as the cast and crew have made it clear that they pushed through their grief and finished the sequel so that they could pay tribute to Paul Walker and the work that he did on the franchise over the years. Losing a cast member in the middle of filming is difficult for ANY film. But for the Fast & Furious series, Paul Walker truly was a founding father, and his loss could have shook the franchise to its core. It will be interesting to see how Fast 7 resolves. There were plans in place for a new trilogy. Could this now, however, be the end of the road?
