Jason Statham spent most of Furious 7 trying to battle with either Vin Diesel or Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. Now that his two man-mountain Fast & Furious co-stars have legit beef, though, the Mechanic: Resurrection star is choosing to stay out of it. Granted, the squabble may have been settled, as both Rocky and Vin have gone to social media to squelch the tension (or, tease a Wrestlemania bout in the near future). But when asked about the feud, Statham had this to say:
I stay out of any bickering or any troubles that people have. I have nothing to do with it and I don't want any part of it.
Jason Statham, noted pacifist, was promoting Mechanic: Resurrection with People Magazine when he tackled the well-publicized squabble between Fast 8 leads Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson. And truthfully, this is the best way to approach such mud-slinging. Getting down into the trenches with a gossipy story such as this only creates more shade. Though some of the Fast 8 co-stars who have been around since the earliest days took sides, Statham's still a relative newcomer to the action franchise, joining in the closing moments of past six, then making things very difficult for Dom Toretto and his crew all through Furious 7. Remember this beat down with The Rock? Brutal!
Truthfully, we don't really understand how Jason Statham can be part of Fast 8. SPOILER WARNING for Furious 7, but at the end of that film, he ended up in a maximum security prison facility, with The Rock's Hobbs lording over it. However, everything that we have seen from Johnson from the set of Fast 8 has shown Hobbs to be part of a massive prison break sequence, so I wonder if that's where Jason Statham could find a way back into the series.
We don't yet know what the plot of Fast 8 will be, though we do know that the production -- under the watchful eye of new director F. Gary Gray -- has filmed in such remote locales as Cuba and Iceland, though it's also using Cleveland as a stand in for New York City. We are under the impression that the beef between The Rock and Vin Diesel will not affect anything that happens on the big screen in this latest chapter of the Fast saga. However, we also wonder if this rift means that The Rock is done with the Furious franchise. That would be heartbreaking, because even if his part was originally written for Tommy Lee Jones, The Rock has made Hobbs his own.
Fast 8 will be in theaters on April 14, 2017.
