The Fast and Furious franchise is purportedly all about family, and if you know anything about families, you know that sometimes they fight. The Fast and Furious family is especially good at this both onscreen and off, and that has once again become evident with the recent release of the franchise’s first spinoff film Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw. Tyrese Gibson has reignited his Fast and Furious franchise feud with Dwayne Johnson by poking fun at Hobbs & Shaw’s box office, saying:
I have to show my respects for one thing…. He tried........ Folks called me a hater…. And attacked me for speaking out..... Breaking up the family clearly doesn’t have the value that one would assume it does
Oh boy, there is a lot to unpack here and I’m not just talking about Tyrese’s liberal use of ellipses. In the since deleted post on his Instagram (via The Shade Room), Tyrese included these sentiments alongside a screenshot of an article titled “Hobbs & Shaw Has Lowest Fast & Furious Box Office Opening Since Tokyo Drift.” So Tyrese was clearly poking fun at the box office for the spinoff film.
The actor seems to see the box office of performance of Hobbs & Shaw as validation of his previous issues with Dwayne Johnson and the spinoff film. In the past, Tyrese has expressed a belief that The Rock was making the Fast & Furious franchise all about him. To Tyrese, the opening box office of Hobbs & Shaw shows that as he says “breaking up the family” by doing the spinoff was not a recipe for wild success.
In Tyrese’s mind, the Fast & Furious franchise is more than the sum of its parts and it works best when the whole family is together and Hobbs & Shaw’s performance is testament to that. Tyrese goes on to say that the film’s $180 million worldwide opening is “NOT a win.” So he was poking fun at Dwayne Johnson and the film in a sort of ‘I told you so’ kind of way.
Now before we get into the substance of Tyrese’s argument, he later expresses a hope to reunite the whole Fast & Furious family, including The Rock, for the tenth film. Nevertheless, the talk of Dwayne Johnson trying his best and failing definitely seems like a way to reignite this one-sided feud.
As far as the box office is concerned, the article Tyrese cited is correct that Hobbs & Shaw had the lowest domestic opening since Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift in 2006. However, the $60 million opening was good enough for first place at the box office and was right in line with where tracking pegged the film, so it didn’t disappoint in that regard.
Moreover, the line about $180 million worldwide not being a win ignores the fact that Hobbs & Shaw did not open day and date all over the world and has yet to open in Italy, France, South Korea and most importantly, China. Maybe someone clued him in on this and that is why he deleted his Instagram post. Although I think it is fair to say that Hobbs & Shaw isn’t as successful or a guaranteed viable replacement for the main franchise, at least not yet.
Tyrese’s Roman Pearce will be in Fast & Furious 9 but I wouldn’t expect him to be reunited with Dwayne Johnson’s Hobbs anytime soon. Hobbs & Shaw seemed to be setting up a new team with a diverging path for this franchise and given the reported issues between Dwayne Johnson and Vin Diesel, I wouldn’t expect any whole family reunions for this franchise’s 10th installment.
Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw is now playing. Check out our premiere guide to see what else is headed to theaters this year and for the latest in the Fast & Furious family feud, stay tuned to CinemaBlend.
