F. Gary Gray

The death of Paul Walker left some mighty big shoes to fill in the Fast & Furious franchise. Some film series might have packed it in after the death of one of its biggest stars, but the Fast-verse is a little bit different than your average blockbuster property. For one thing, characters have been coming and going from its ever-expanding storyline from the very beginning. For another, Furious 7 was the biggest movie in the series to date by a very large margin; it’s worldwide box office total was almost double that of Fast & Furious 6. So these movies aren’t going anywhere. But they do need some new stars.

You know the Fast and Furious drill by now: fast cars, Vin Diesel, bromance, fast cars, insane chases and stunts, fast cars, internationally wanted criminal in the mix, rinse, repeat. Even then, each Fast and Furious movie has — mostly — tried to do something a little different, whether that’s in upping the stunt ante or taking the action to exotic new locations, or giving Dwayne Johnson a giant military-grade helicopter machine gun. Accordingly, Furious 8 director F. Gary Gray is looking to keep things fresh in the upcoming sequel, and he has no intention of disappointing the Fast and Furious fanbase.

We don’t know a whole lot about Furious 8 — Straight Outta Compton’s F. Gary Gray is directing and Vin Diesel is obviously returning, and…okay, a director and Vin Diesel is all you really need to put a movie together, even if Diesel has to play every role himself (and he would, too). Today brings a quick update on the upcoming sequel, as Gray is reportedly eyeing a few international filming locations, aka a few places that will look pretty cool when Diesel and the Furious crew race and jump and explode their cars all over the landscape.

Following the highly-publicized drama and subsequent disappointment of Fantastic Four, Josh Trank exited (or was let go from) Lucasfilm and Disney’s Boba Fett solo film. The studios are reportedly still planning on making that film, and a new rumor suggests that they came close to hiring Straight Outta Compton director F. Gary Gray for the gig — but even more interesting is who they want to play the famed bounty hunter.

With James Wan not returning to direct the next installment in the Fast and Furious franchise, Furious 8 is in desperate need of someone to sit behind the camera before Vin Diesel decides to just do the job himself. But it looks like Universal has narrowed their options down to just a few directors, each of them interesting choices in their own right.