Dwayne Johnson has finally squashed his beef with Vin Diesel and returned to the Fast & Furious franchise, but the timing of his new Luke Hobbs spin-off could complicate the series’ timeline even more. The Fast & Furious timeline has been needlessly complicated since the third movie, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. The fourth, fifth, and sixth movies all took place before Tokyo Drift before finally racing past the threequel in Furious 7 and The Fate of the Furious. Just when the timeline was getting back on track, Johnson has come back to make it even more confusing with an awkwardly placed new Hobbs movie.
Johnson has announced that his next movie after the upcoming Christmas actioner Red One will be a Fast & Furious movie that allows Hobbs a proper sendoff. Reportedly titled Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Reyes, the new movie will star Johnson as Hobbs and Jason Momoa as his eccentric Fast X villain Dante Reyes. Based on the reluctant team-up in Johnson’s last Fast & Furious spin-off, Hobbs & Shaw, this movie could even see Hobbs and Dante joining forces. The new movie is certainly exciting, but planting it in the middle of the Fast X trilogy will complicate the timeline.
The Rock’s Hobbs Spinoff Movie Makes Fast & Furious’ Timeline Confusing
The new Hobbs movie featuring Dante is set to be released before Fast & Furious 11. Fast X ended on a very uncertain cliffhanger – with Dom Toretto about to die in front of Dante – that was promised to be resolved in Fast 11. But if Dante is appearing in a whole other Fast & Furious movie before the 11th mainline installment, it’ll be tricky to explain the resolution of that cliffhanger. Marvel didn’t make another movie with Thanos as the villain in between Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. Fast X’s mid-credits scene saw Dante naming Hobbs as his next target, but it’s unclear when that scene takes place.
How exactly will the Hobbs movie play out? Could there be a time jump? Will it follow Hobbs prior to the events of Fast X? The concept behind the upcoming Hobbs movie is to see the character ride off into the sunset and get a definitive conclusion to his story. But if he’s killed by Dante, that’ll be a disappointing conclusion to this seemingly invincible character’s story. And he can’t kill Dante, because Dante needs to stick around as the main villain for the rest of the Fast X trilogy. Hobbs & Reyes is setting up fans for disappointment.
What The Hobbs Movie Means For Fast & Furious 11 After Fast X’s Ending
The cliffhanger ending of Fast X, in which Dante blows up a dam and Dom and Little B’s fates are left unknown in the midst of the ensuing explosion, set up an enthralling next Fast & Furious movie. But if Dante is co-starring in Hobbs & Reyes before Fast 11, then it might have to resolve that cliffhanger early and take the air out of Fast 11’s tires. Hobbs & Reyes will see Dante going on a whole different adventure to kill Hobbs before returning to take down the rest of Dom’s crew. This could ruin the momentum of the Fast X storyline going into its second and third parts.
