The Fast & Furious franchise looks a lot different compared to what was offered up in 2001’s The Fast & the Furious. 20 years ago, that first movie followed a group of street racers who pulled off daring heists, and nowadays, Dominic Toretto and his crew usually get behind the wheel to save the world amidst physics-defying action. But if The Fast & the Furious is one of your favorite entries in the franchise, you’re in luck, as Vin Diesel says the upcoming F9 will help you understand that movie even more.
Assuming there are no more delays, F9 is finally primed to arrive in a little under two months, so naturally that means the marketing push for the blockbuster is kicking up a notch. As such, Vin Diesel stopped by for the debut episode of EW’s Binge: The Fast Saga, and among the topics he discussed was how F9 ties into The Fast & the Furious. In the actor’s words:
The whole world has this excitement about this movie coming out, but for those who have been with the franchise, it's even more special. Because if you can remember the first movie, you are now going to go before the first movie and understand the first movie even more. That's cool. I'm a D&D head, so that's like origin stuff. So to see family members you never thought you would have seen, it's gonna kind of blow your mind. We've been wanting to know, where was Dom before he became Dom? Who were his influences? That's going to be really rich with story, and a lot of fun to see.
Ever since it was revealed that John Cena is playing Jakob Toretto, Dom and Mia’s estranged brother, Fast & Furious fans have been looking forward to learning more about the Toretto family’s history pre-The Fast & the Furious. There have been a few mentions over the years about Dom and Mia’s younger years, but now that Jakob is entering the picture, we’ll now be further pulling back the curtain on what their lives were like long before they met Brian O’Connor, and not just through dialogue between the siblings.
Last month, it was reported that Vincent Sinclair, Vin Diesel’s son, will play a younger version of Dominic Toretto in F9. So the movie will have flashbacks to Dom, Mia and Jakob’s childhood, and Diesel’s mention of seeing family members we never thought we’d see has me thinking these flashbacks will also include their parents, specifically one tragic moment. It was revealed in The Fast and the Furious that their father was a stock car racer who died while competing, and if you look closely at the Super Bowl preview for F9, there’s a shot of what looks like a stock car race. Methinks F9 will finally show how Dom, Mia and Jakob’s father died two decades after we learned about his demise.
But looks back to the Toretto days of yore are just one of the many things to look forward to in F9. The next Fast & Furious movie will also feature Jakob Toretto working alongside Charlize Theron’s Cipher, the return of Sung Kang’s Han Lue, Helen Mirren’s Magdalene Shaw finally getting to drive and even a trip into outer space. And even after all is said and done in F9, there are still two more movies left to look forward to from the main Fast & Furious film series, to which Vin Diesel said that “you can only imagine what is to come.”
F9 will race to the big screen on June 25, and if you’re curious about what else is on track to arrive later in the year, read through our upcoming 2021 movies schedule.
