This weekend saw “The Fast & The Furious” franchise star Vin Diesel take the stage at Fuel Fest to announce that he made some “demands” of Universal Pictures for their next and potentially last installment, “Fast X: Part 2” (aka “Fast & Furious 11“) with French filmmaker Louis Leterrier returning to direct after replacing Justin Lin on “Fast X.”
Over the weekend, in Pomona, California, Diesel joined fellow franchise actors Tyrese Gibson and Cody Walker at Fuel Fest (via Variety), a car enthusiast event where the actor dished on a release date aiming for April 2027, and listed off three demands he had for the studio.
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“The studio said to me, ‘Vin, can we please have the finale of ‘Fast and Furious’ [in] April 2027?'” Diesel said. “I said, ‘Under three conditions.’ First, is to bring the franchise back to L.A.! The second thing was to return to the car culture, to the street racing! The third thing was reuniting Dom and Brian O’Conner,” Diesel announced on Saturday.
Paul Walker died after being in a car that crashed while speeding at over 100mph (said to be twice the speed limit), and the loss had a huge impact on the cast but they ended up finishing up “Furious 7” with a touching final scene that mixed VFX trickery and having Paul’s brother Cody (who was at Fuel Fest alongside Gibson and Diesel) act as a stand-in for the late actor.
If O’Conner is really coming back for “Fast X: Part 2” there is an expectation that Cody could be asked to stand-in again, but would be quite the expensive venture (extensive VFX and AI audio to replicate Walker on-screen would be needed to be employed) could be seen as in poor taste given the previous send-off in “Furious 7,” while a little unpolished was still considered a heartfelt way to give the character a happy ending.
Another condition Diesel claimed he made to the studio was to bring back the story to Los Angeles, alongside street racing culture. The latter is a little more confusing, considering that Universal had previously gone out of their way to minimize the focus of the sequels on illegal street racing (why the group morphed into pseudo spies), as the kid-friendly franchise was name-dropped by news reports every time someone died trying to recreate scenes and had been cited as renewing the popularity of youth street racing in the 2000s.
We can’t bring up the project without mentioning that Diesel’s former assistant claims that the action star committed sexual battery against her in 2010, which the actor has denied. Fans will have to patiently wait for concrete plot and character details for “Fast X: Part 2,” but it does sound like they’re getting closer to filming if Diesel is to be believed.
Fuel Fest in LA this weekend 🏎️ 🏁
— LisaDawnQ17 🌅 (@LisaDawnQ17) June 29, 2025
Listen to what Vin Diesel says 👂about Brian / Paul 🥹🙏🏼
Fast X Part II 🎬 🍿 BUCKLE UP!!!
Papi Trumpo said we need🍿 and JD Vance walked out like the Bad Ass he is 👀 https://t.co/llhFgCAzyM pic.twitter.com/y5tL8ONveT
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