When you are a studio executive and your latest blockbuster rakes in a cool $392.3 million worldwide in the matter of just three days, what do you do next? You plan for the sequel, of course. But in a story published by The Hollywood Reporter, it seems Fast & Furious 8 isn’t nearing production, or even pre-production, as quickly as one might think.
“Honestly, we’re just bathing in the success of this,” states Furious 7 producer Neal Moritz. And frankly, why wouldn’t Universal take some time to enjoy the ride? Studios are primarily concerned with making money through strong brands, sustainable franchises, and recognizable stars, and in recent years few franchises have been as lucrative as the Fast & Furious series, whose success only grows with each new entry.
Fast Five grossed $626.1 million at the worldwide box office, Fast & Furious 6 pulled down $788.7 million in global receipts, and with a worldwide gross that currently stands at $406.3 million, Furious 7 is well on its way toward the billion-dollar mark, or somewhere near it. The next blockbuster preparing to take the world by storm is Avengers: Age of Ultron, and that’s not hitting theaters until May 1, leaving Furious 7 ample time to sit atop the box office throne. As for Fast & Furious 8, Moritz tells The Hollywood Reporter, “We’ll probably get together in a week or so to talk.” In other words, though the franchise is called Fast & Furious, Moritz doesn’t mind taking things slow for a bit.
The Reporter‘s article, titled “Fast 8 Nowhere Near Starting Line“, is mostly concerned with which members of the cast will be back for the next entry in the series and who exactly could take over the director’s chair, as James Wan was released from his deal to helm two franchise installments after reconfiguring numerous sequences in Furious 7 due to Paul Walker‘s untimely death. Perhaps the most interesting part of the article, however, is the following snippet, which gives some insight into how these films are made from a story standpoint:
[N]o writer has been hired for the next outing — not that the lack of a script has held back the franchise before. The films tend to be designed backward: After a release date is set, producer-star Vin Diesel, 47, considered the keeper of the flame, works with scribe Chris Morgan, Moritz and a director to hash out a story, coming up with elaborate set pieces then fleshing out a narrative to connect the sequences.
For a franchise titled Fast & Furious, I suppose this makes some sense, though it certainly does seem backwards. Instead of coming up with a story and building in high-octane sequences, it’s those action set pieces that come first, and the story follows. The approach, however backwards it is, seems to be working just fine for Universal, which has built itself a franchise where each successive installment out-grosses the one immediately preceding it, with the exception of The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.
Too often I think of the planning and production of a film in terms of what seems most logical to me, but every now and again I read something like this that makes me realize big franchises like this don’t need to play by the rules as I see them. After all, though audiences might be drawn to the members of Furious 7‘s ride-or-die family, the chief selling point of these movies is how successfully they entertain audiences through thrills, effects, and seemingly death-defying stunts.
And with Universal’s chief objective being to make money and sustain the franchise, it should come as no surprise the studio plans these films first by choosing a favorable release date and figuring out the primary action beats, and then worrying about a story that will string those sequences together. After all, it has become hugely important in recent years to lock down a release before another film or studio stakes its claims, and with these big-budget franchises, studios must continually up the ante when it comes to effects and set pieces; each film must be bigger than the one before it. Is it backwards? Sure. But no one can say it isn’t successful.
