Family is not only about love; it’s about fighting and making up. But, things might be going slowly in the direction when it comes to the Fast&Furious franchise. For one, their family expanded and shrunk at the same time. You must be wondering how’s that possible? Well, it is. You have regulars like Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, and Tyrese Gibson playing their roles while being flanked by Helen Mirren and Charlize Theron. You even have some of the Tokyo Drift actors reappearing. But, you also have at least one big-name missing.
Luke Hobbs, played by Dwayne The Rock Johnson was not part of the upcoming installment. His character was introduced in Fast Five, and he appeared in all following movies, up until now. The reasons are many but it is still strange especially considering he did a spin-off based in the same universe, which is something no one did so far. Maybe this was the primary reason for his omit.
Fast & Furious 9 Without Dwayne Johnson! Why?
Like always, there is official reasoning why things are as they are. As we said, Johnson did a spin-off movie together with Jason Statham called Hobbs & Shaw. The filming of Fast 9 went ahead right as two actors were promoting their film, so they couldn’t part of the crew. Talking about the schedule conflict the Jumanji star said: “As of now, we’re not in Fast 9 because they’re getting ready to start shooting. But who knows with Fast 10 and down the road, you never know.”
Here is where things become interesting. Jason Statham did appear in Fast 9. The one who didn’t have a role was only Johnson. The whole future of the franchise revolves around the scene in which Statham appears in featuring Han’s death in the post-credit scene. This is a clear indication the future movies are going to feature him just as Fast 9 did.
But, despite this, The Rock did have a real scheduling conflict. After all, he’s the most sought Hollywood action star. In the same way, he must be hurting for not featuring in the Fast franchise, for now, the franchise is certainly hurting by his absence. In the mid-time, he worked on Red Notice, a Netflix piece that will also feature Gal Gadot, yet another Fast&Furious co-star. Johnson is not only acting but also producing this movie, which means that despite being postponed, he would still be heavily involved in making the project see the light of the day amid a pandemic. Another project taking most of his time was the work on Young Rock, which is a biopic series produced by NBC.
While this is all great to hear, and we would like to believe that professional obligations are the only reason for his absence, it is a bit more personal. We’re talking family after all. As you probably the was a little candy incident in 2017 involving The Rock and his co-stars. Back in the day, the San Andreas star said: “My female co-stars are always amazing and I love ’em. My male co-stars however are a different story. Some conduct themselves as stand-up men and true professionals, while others don’t. The ones that don’t are too chicken s*** to do anything about it anyway. Candy asses. When you watch this movie next April and it seems like I’m not acting in some of these scenes and my blood is legit boiling—you’re right.”
This was the initial spark that fueled their whole feud and allegedly brought the family break-up to the light of the day. The whole Instagram post was aimed at Diesel, who didn’t want to be involved in anything feud-like but also wasn’t silent on the matter. During an interview with Men’s Health, he said: “It was a tough character to embody, the Hobbs character. My approach at the time was a lot of tough love to assist in getting that performance where it needed to be…That took a lot of work. We had to get there and sometimes, at that time, I could give a lot of tough love… but I would do anything I’d have to do in order to get performances in anything I’m producing.”
The whole thing was about to end, especially after Johnson achieved success with Hobbs & Shaw. The film earned a massive $750 million at the box office, and Dwayne wasn’t shy of thanking Diesel and giving him credit where it’s due: “Also lastly, but not least, want to thank brother Vin for your support of Hobbs & Shaw.”
The good news came from the director, Justin Lin, who in a recent interview with Cinema Blend talked about the future of the franchise. Taking about characters of Hobbs and Shaw he said: “So many of the conversations I have is about characters that are not even in there but are still, obviously, they are living and breathing in this universe. On this one, when I came back, I was thinking a lot about Hobbs and Shaw, and all of the other characters. I never think of them as being gone, for sure.”
Kim Marks 
Nina Smith