Vin Diesel

While fans have mostly been enthusiastic about the expanded role of Jason Statham in The Fate of the Furious, there is one thing that has stuck in their collective craw. While Statham’s character has the movie’s best moments, he never stops to address the elephant in the room: Shaw did kill Sung Kang’s Han, perhaps the most beloved character in the franchise and (we assumed) an unforgivable offense for a movie built on family. Will the filmmakers address this in a future installment of the Fast and the Furious films? Or, perhaps more intriguing, could Sung Kang find his way back into the franchise?

If you saw The Fate of the Furious over the weekend, you saw its fun opening race, set in Havana, Cuba. But did you know the eighth Fast & Furious was the first Hollywood movie in decades to shoot on the island? It’s true; and it’s just one of the facts featured in the latest installment of You Think You Know Movies!

Last summer, a spat allegedly broke out between Fast and Furious franchise megastars Vin Diesel and Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson while shooting the latest installment The Fate of the Furious. There were rumors of unprofessionalism on set, Johnson threw around the term “candy-ass” pretty liberally, it was a hoot for all involved. But it did cast some doubt on Johnson’s future with the series; there was no telling whether the performer could be persuaded to return for another collaboration with a guy he seemingly couldn’t stand. But a new revelation today (well, new for all of you — Johnson and I are well-documented besties and have been Gchatting about this all week) clarifies the fate of this furious man.

Audiences who stuck around after the end credits of newly released cinematic demolition derby The Fate of the Furious were disappointed to learn that there would be no bonus stinger scene, as has been customary in past installments of the franchise. (In addition to the pre-existing disappointment resulting from learning that Charlize Theron’s character is named Cipher.) It’s atypical for the series to refrain from teasing its next ride, and many fans are wondering what gives. Wonder no longer! Vin Diesel, as fate would have it, is reportedly to blame.

You surely know that Paul Walker tragically passed away in 2013. But did you know that in order to finish Furious 7 while giving his character, Brian O’Conner, a fitting sendoff, the creators of Furious 7 had to use a combination of digital effects and body doubles, which included Walker’s brothers, Caleb and Cody? That’s just one of the fast facts featured in the latest episode of You Think You Know Movies!

In The Fate of the Furious, the eighth installment in the car-jacking, street racing franchise, Vin Diesel’s Dom Toretto does the worst thing a man of his values can do: He turns his back on family. That six letter, three syllable mantra is the sentimental thread that holds the Fast and Furious crew together, and what adds heart to an action series suffused with cars and criminals. One would assume there must be good reason to plot an entire film around something so antithetical to the spirit of the series. But that reveal winds up being the silliest and most left-field twist since the time the movies explained Letty’s (Michelle Rodriguez) return with amnesia.

Fambly. Chances are you just read that word in the gravel-voiced growl of babyfaced colossus Vin Diesel, the star of the Fast and Furious franchise that turned those two syllables into a catchphrase, and then into a way of life. In no small way, Diesel is the series, and not just because his name makes him sound like he’s already a character in one of these movies. As noble-hearted car jacker Dom Toretto, he helped shape the tone, themes, and overall outlook of all films fast and furious. But he was this close to missing it all, and going through life primarily identified as “the guy in the xXx movies I always tell my wife I was trying to Google.”

For years, one of the internet’s dirty little secrets has been that people really enjoy The Fate of the Furious: Tokyo Drift. A healthy flop at the time of its release  —  the film’s $60 million gross is half that of 2 Fast 2 Furious, the second-lowest grossing movie in the Fast and the Furious franchise  —  Tokyo Drift has climbed steadily back into fans’ favor due to the lasting appeal of Sung Kang’s Han Lue and a bit of chronological trickery in a later film that boosted this one’s reputation. It’s amazing how much better a film gets when you stop being mad at it for failing to bring back any of the main characters.

Up until last week, I was a proud resident of New York City, which meant  —  like most New Yorkers  —  I avoided Times Square like the plague. Even transferring between trains at Times Square could be a frustrating exercise in crowd management; when it comes to actually getting behind the wheel myself, I would gladly drive around the entire island of Manhattan twice before I would risk driving anywhere between Union Square and Central Park. That makes the New York setting of The Fate of the Furious an exercise in wish fulfillment for me. Forget street racing and international espionage; I just want to experience what it’s like to drive through Times Square at more than five miles an hour.

F8Gate. The ‘Candy Ass’ Heard ’Round the World. Call it what you will, but last year’s unexpected beef between Dwayne Johnson and Vin Diesel on the set of The Fate of the Furious has resulted in a Hollywood blind item almost as interesting and epic as the movie franchise that spawned it. Forget about turning your back on family; watching Dwayne Johnson lose his legendary cool over one of his costars was like watching a couple you really admired go through a messy divorce. Were things really that out-of-control behind the scenes or was this all an elaborate ruse involving two men who understand the showmanship involved in a proper heel turn?