Following the death of Paul Walker, the future of Fast & Furious 7 has been uncertain, as the film was partway through production when Walker died tragically in a car accident late last month. Production has since been halted, but today, Fast & Furious star Vin Diesel has shared the new release date for the seventh film in the thrilling racing/action franchise, along with a photo of himself and Walker in the last scene they shot together:
Post by Vin Diesel.
In the caption for the photo, Diesel notes the "unique sense of completion" and pride they shared in the film they were now completing, and then goes on to announce that Fast & Furious 7 will be released April 10, 2015. It's a notable delay from the planned July 2014 release date originally set for the film, but it's less than a year from the original date.
There isn't a whole lot on the calendar for April 2015 just yet, as Insidious Chapter 3 and Weinstein/Dimensions' sci-fi film Passengers are the only movies currently scheduled to release that month, both for April 3.
Earlier this month, Universal announced that they were officially shutting down production on the film for "a period of time" so that they could assess their options and figure out how to move forward with the franchise. Given that Walker played one of the primary characters in the films, bringing closure to his character seems like a necessary, albeit challenging, course to take in terms of moving forward with the franchise without Paul Walker, it's just a matter of how. There’s been talk of script revisions being made to retire Walker’s character, and one of the more recent reports included the possibility that Walker’s brother Cody could step in to play Brian for the final scenes of Fast & Furious 7. We haven’t seen any confirmation on whether or not that’s definitely happening, but with a release date set, some decisions on the direction of the franchise may have been made, so we’ll have to wait and see what other news comes in on this project in the coming days and weeks.
Here’s the tribute video released on the Fast & Furious YouTube channel to honor Walker’s memory:
