After almost a decade of slick cars and family-driven storylines, the Fast & Furious franchise took a detour with an unlikely team-up movie: Hobbs & Shaw, starring Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham. The summer action movie directed by Deadpool 2’s David Leitch was a fun experiment for Universal to take, but it seems to have led to a behind-the-scenes feud between Tyrese Gibson and The Rock.
And by behind-the-scenes, we mean a very public social media beef between the two actors who have not been shy about firing at one another. While it seemed their differences had been put aside after years of rumored back-and-forths, the opening weekend of Hobbs & Shaw reignited the flames. When the summer movie had the lowest opening weekend since Tokyo Drift, Tyrese Gibson and Dwayne Johnson went back to their old ways.
When Tyrese Gibson came on The Wendy Williams Show to promote his new film Black and Blue, he was asked about it. Here’s what he said:
If you want to know how I feel about that man, it’s all over the internet. Have fun!
And here you are, conveniently here on the internet! Now the actor/singer might have taken some time to clear up his comments or deny any feud between him and The Rock. However, his response indicates the internet is where he would like this discourse to stay and has nothing more to say to steer the conversation in another way.
Yikes! It sounds like he still thinks of The Rock in a negative light and deferred his comments to what he said because he still stands by it. Most recently, Tyrese Gibson screenshot the opening numbers of Hobbs & Shaw and commented that “Breaking up the family clearly doesn’t have the value that one would assume it does.” Although Hobbs & Shaw didn’t quite measure up to the core franchise’s numbers, it still has a spot in the top 10 highest-grossing movies of 2019 with a $758 million global gross.
Dwayne Johnson subtly responded to his comments by saying “The best way to shut the mouth of a clown is to flex with success and a smile” on his Twitter to celebrate Hobbs & Shaw cracking No. 1 in its first weekend. Tyrese Gibson had previously been vocal about his disinterest in the spinoff, especially since it stalled the production of Fast & Furious 9.
Johnson and Statham are skipping out on Fast & Furious 9 since they just did the spinoff, and Tyrese will reprise his character, Roman Pearce. He recently wrapped filming the movie ahead of its May 2020 release, also starring Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, John Cena, Charlize Theron, Ludacris and, most recently announced, Cardi B.
Tyrese Gibson has had a busy year, filming Morbius with Jared Leto for Sony’s Spider-Verse, and his next film, Black & Blue with Naomie Harris, is hitting theaters this Friday, October 25.
