Warning: spoilers for Hobbs & Shaw are in play. If you haven’t seen the film, please back out of this story now, and come back once you’re current.
As any good franchise will tell you, when a character dies it’s not always permanent. Just ask the legion of fans from the Fast & Furious franchise who have seen characters supposedly die or depart, only to see them come back in a future film in the series.
So obviously, when Idris Elba’s Brixton Lore took a swan dive off of a Hawaiian cliff in Hobbs & Shaw, the question of whether or not he was really killed by his superiors at Eteon is something that had to be asked, and ask I did, as you’ll see in the footage below:
As CinemaBlend was on hand at the London junket for Hobbs & Shaw, the question of Brixton Lore’s fate is one that had to come up in any good conversation about the film’s events. With his character being able to withstand extreme thresholds of punishment, Elba’s proclamation that his character is Black Superman is pretty much confirmed by the end of the film.
Naturally, Idris Elba would agree with the sentiment that his supposed self-destruction at the hands of “The Director” is nothing more than a temporary setback. All of the upgrades in the world have been installed into Brixton’s person, so one would think that Eteon has severely underestimated their bionic heavy and his resilience.
With his survival hypothesized, the next question for the Hobbs & Shaw franchise happens to be whether or not Brixton can be turned to the side of good, should a stray electrical current or Hawaiian native be able to recover and revive his lifeless body. Knowing the history of the franchise, and how it loves to make its former adversaries into good guys, that would point to a pretty big vote in the “Yes” column.
After all, if it wasn’t for that attitude towards the former foes of Vin Diesel’s Dominic Toretto, we wouldn’t have Hobbs & Shaw in the first place, as Dwayne Johnson’s Luke Hobbs gummed up the works for Dom in Fast Five and Jason Statham’s Deckard Shaw raised hell in Furious 7 and a portion of The Fate of The Furious.
Ultimately, the chances of Idris Elba’s return, as well as the Hobbs & Shaw series returning, will all fall to this weekend’s box office results. So far, that prospect looks promising, as a $5.8 million haul came in from Thursday night showings alone, and a supposed $200 million mark being the estimated take on the worldwide stage for this weekend alone.
In the long run, the high water mark to beat is Furious 7’s $1.5 billion worldwide grosses; but one could assume that a more forgiving mark has been set at the Universal offices, as this is the prototype for a new line of Fast & Furious action. The foundation for a franchise is there, all that needs to happen is for the right people to say the word.
Should the green light be granted though, one can only hope that Brixton's fate will take a turn for the better, bringing him back into the fold as an agent on either side of the fence. Good or bad, he's just that damned fun to watch in action.
Hobbs & Shaw is in theaters now.
