His pre- Fast & Furious misses include two comparative prestige projects (Sidney Lumet’s Find Me Guilty and F. The only reason the gang got back together in Fast & Furious is because Vin Diesel and Paul Walker (along with, gender-based inequities taken into account, Rodriguez and Brewster) had mostly struck out with their own star vehicles between the first film and the fourth movie.Īside from those two, Vin Diesel’s filmography both before Fast & Furious ($366 million worldwide) in 2009 and after Fast & Furious 6 ($788 million worldwide) in 2013 were generally in the “nope” column. Fast Five combined everyone from the first four movies into a blockbuster (rave reviews, plus $209 million domestic and $626 million global in 2011) which turned the franchise into an A-level action series.

The initial hit spawned spin-offs ( 2 Fast 2 Furious and Tokyo Drift) and then a traditional sequel ( Fast & Furious). There’s a good chance that if Vin Diesel and Paul Walker came back for a conventional Fast & Furious II that this franchise might have ended in three installments. Whether he thought he was worth that much or whether he didn’t want to do it and was trying to price himself out of the movie, I cannot say.

After Rob Cohen’s The Fast and the Furious became a surprise smash in the summer of 2001 (a $40 million debut, a $144 million domestic cume and a $207 million global total on a $38 million budget), Vin Diesel allegedly wanted $27 million to return for a sequel. I have long argued that the Fast & Furious franchise became what it is today precisely because its top-billed star resisted attempts to lure him back.

Much of Vin Diesel’s career has been about trying to prove his commercial worth outside of the franchise that turned him from a cult favorite into a pop culture icon.

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