Fast & Furious star Michelle Rodriguez predicted the franchise’s success more than two decades ago, according to a director who once worked with the actor. The first installment in the hit action franchise was released in 2001, introducing audiences to Vin Diesel’s Dominic Toretto and his “family” of skilled drivers. Rodriguez plays Letty Ortiz in the franchise, which now consists for more than 10 movies in total.
As audiences await news on the announced Fast & Furious 11, director Karyn Kusama, who directed Rodriguez in 2000’s Girlfight, reveals to THR that Rodriguez made a prescient comment about the action franchise 23 years ago. According to the director, the actor predicted after reading the first Fast & Furious script that the property would stand the test of time and become a big franchise. Check out Kusama’s full comment below:
“I remember really vividly after Sundance, after getting all this attention, she was telling me what she wanted to do. She was like, ‘You know, there’s this video game I love called Resident Evil. I really want to see if there’s a movie of that. And if there is, I want to be in it. And I read this script that I really loved called Fast and Furious. And I think it’s going to be a like global franchise that will last decades.’
“And I was like, ‘Really?’ She called it. She knew. To be honest, I didn’t see it — but she did, which is kind of amazing.”
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While Fast & Furious certainly didn’t start off as a critically darling, movies in the middle of the franchise like Fast Five, Fast & Furious 6, and Furious 7 actually fared well with critics. As the movies have gotten increasingly bigger and more ridiculous, however, the reception has soured again. The reviews for Fast X last summer were some of the worst reviews for the franchise in years, continuing the mostly negative critics’ response to F9.
Title | Rotten Tomatoes Critics Score | Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score |
|---|---|---|
The Fast and the Furious (2001) | 54% | 74% |
2 Fast 2 Furious (2003) | 37% | 50% |
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006) | 37% | 69% |
Fast & Furious (2009) | 28% | 67% |
Fast Five (2011) | 78% | 83% |
Fast & Furious 6 (2013) | 71% | 84% |
Furious 7 (2015) | 81% | 82% |
The Fate of the Furious (2017) | 67% | 72% |
Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019) | 67% | 88% |
F9 The Fast Saga (2021) | 59% | 82% |
Fast X (2023) | 56% | 84% |
There’s evidently fun to be had with the franchise’s bonkers and over-the-top action, and this is reflected in the consistently positive audience scores for each new Fast & Furious movie on Rotten Tomatoes. The Fast X box office performance, though, suggests the franchise may be starting to overstay its welcome. Although the latest sequel, which was directed by Louis Leterrier performed well overseas, earning $558.7 million, the movie’s domestic box office performance was underwhelming at $146.1 million.
With the Fast X budget coming in at a whopping $300 million (due in part to the onset of COVID during filming), this formula is clearly not sustainable, and the next movie will have to cost significantly less in order to make a profit. While the latest sequel isn’t a failure, it’s an obvious sign that the franchise may have reached a point of diminishing returns. The Fast & Furious franchise’s broader standing will become more clear after the next movie, but, regardless, the fact that it’s been successful for so long is a remarkable feat.
Source: THR
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