Rising from the ashes of a middlingly-revived third film (though its a fan favorite), The Fast and Furious franchise has found new life at the box office over the last decade. After Fate of the Furious carved out over a billion dollars at the box office, the question was when, not if, Fast and Furious 9 would be coming.
Well it appears that Fast and Furious 9 will finally be happening, with Omega Underground reporting that the film is set to begin production April 20th, 2019, with filming to begin in Atlanta, Georgia.
Its ironic that a franchise that celebrates family has become one of the most dysfunctional behind the scenes. Dwayne Johnson’s beef with a majority of the cast is well-documented at this point, and with Universal trying to create a Hobbs and Shaw spin-off for Johnson and Jason Statham respectively, its clear that they aren’t quite sure about the franchise’s future. All that being said, Fast and Furious 9 will likely continue to keep up the franchise’s formula of expanding the action in some crazy ways.
While a lot of fans may be impatient that Furious 9 will likely not hit theaters till 2020, I think the delay in production makes a lot of sense. After releasing a new entry every 2 years since 2009, some noticeable fatigue began to set in domestically when Fate of the Furious earned only 226 million dollars (far off from Furious 7’s 353 million) . Waiting just one more year will likely reduce that fatigue, bringing the series back to its prime form box office-wise.