If things had according to plan this year, the ninth Fast & Furious movie, officially known as F9, would have hit theaters back in May, meaning you’d be able to watch it on home media now. Unfortunately, the health crisis resulted in F9 being delayed to next year. The silver lining to that drastic release date shift is it afforded director Justin Lin extra time to put F9 together, and now the filmmaker has revealed that work on the movie is almost complete.
F9 finished filming long ago, but as anyone remotely familiar with the moviemaking process knows, there’s a lot of work that goes into the post-production process, especially for actin-packed blockbusters. But it looks like that portion of F9 is nearly done, as Justin Lin announced that the movie’s audio mix is locked in with the following Twitter post:
While it’s possible there’s still a little extra work to be done before F9 is 100% finished, such as ironing out the VFX, the next installment in the Fast & Furious franchise is almost at the finish line, and with plenty of time to spare. F9 isn’t scheduled to arrive until next May, so Lin and his team could have easily spread out the work and finished F9 just a month or two before delivering it to the public. Instead, it sounds like F9 will be ready to go before 2020 is over.
While the Fast & Furious franchise entertained fans last year with the Hobbs & Shaw spinoff, by the time F9 hits the big screen, it’ll have been four years since the last installment in the main film series, The Fate of the Furious, came out. Originally F9 was delayed to April 2, 2021, but after the next James Bond movie, No Time to Die, moved into that same slot, Universal Pictures shifted the car-centric blockbuster to late May.
F9 sees Dominic Toretto and our other intrepid protagonists facing off against John Cena’s Jakob Toretto, Dom and Mia’s estranger brother who’s joined forces with Charlize Theron’s Cipher, the main antagonist from The Fate of the Furious. F9 is also bringing Sung Kang’s Han Lue back into play after years of the character having thought to be killed, and somehow the action will eventually make its way into outer space. This is Justin Lin’s fifth time directing a Fast & Furious movie, having joined the franchise with 2006’s Tokyo Drift and helming the three movies that followed.
We’re about due for another F9 trailer to be released, but until that happens, feel free to re-watch the first trailer below.
Originally F9 was being positioned at the penultimate entry of the main Fast & Furious film series. However, it was announced last month that two more sequels are on the way rather than just one, so we’re getting a little extra time with Dom and the gang. Plus, there’s both a Hobbs & Shaw sequel and a female-focused spinoff in development, so even though the main narrative is beginning to wind down, this franchise isn’t disappearing anytime soon.
F9 races into theaters on May 28, 2021. If you’re curious about what other movies are supposed to come out next year, scan through our 2021 release schedule.
