Dwayne Johnson wants the “antithesis” of a Fast & Furious movie for next Hobbs & Shaw
2 Fast 2 Furious too much? The Rock seems to think so
Aux News Dwayne Johnson
Despite all the public squabbling with star Vin Diesel, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson still wants to stay in the Fast & Furious family. In a recent interview with SiriusXM, the star said that he pitched a Hobbs & Shaw sequel the studio reportedly “loved.” Stranger still, he tells Sirius that this wouldn’t be your daddy’s Fast & Furious movie, but rather the “antithesis of what Fast And Furious movies generally are.”
To the layperson, the antithesis of Fast And Furious means slow and happy, but to The Rock, it implies getting away from the serialized, soap operatics of the whole thing (also known as “the fun part”). Johnson clarifies that the antithesis of Fast & Furious is “the quintessential Hobbs movie.”
“So when it comes to Hobbs & Shaw, which we loved making that movie, there’s an idea that I had that I called Donna Langley, called our writer Chris Morgan, our producer Hiram Garcia. And I said, ‘I have this idea and this direction for Hobbs.’ And I pitched it and they all loved it. It would be the antithesis of what Fast And Furious movies generally are in that they continue to go on and go on and go on. In this case, I still want to do the quintessential Hobbs movie. That, without giving it away, you watch a man walk off into the sunset. Donna loved it and they’ve been wonderful partners at Universal, but I said, ’You know, we have an opportunity here, I think to go against the grain and let’s disrupt things a little bit, and let’s create a movie within the Fast And Furious world that is unexpected, that I think people will go, ‘Oh man, like, wow, thank you for that.’”
Of course, the quintessential Hobbs movie is Fast Five, with the Johnson vehicle Hobbs & Shaw representing, perhaps, the least essential Hobbs movie—edging out The Fate Of The Furious by a hair, in spite of the overwhelmingly bald-headed aesthetics of the franchise.
Nevertheless, even though all the Universal executives and Fast & Furious writers he talked to love the idea (and probably want to stay in the Dwayne Johnson business), Johnson says that his next project must have “the Moses effect.”
Much like how Moses parted the Red Sea, The Rock picks projects that have “an ability to push all other projects to the side.” Just to clarify, he said this in reference to a question about whether or not a San Andreas 2 would happen.
Does Hobbs & Shaw 2 or San Andreas 2: San Francisco have “the Moses effect?” Can these projects, with an outstretched hand, deliver The Rock’s current slate from bondage, like Jungle Cruise and Red Notice before? Only time will tell.
[via Collider]
59 Comments
It feels odd but I get it. If he’s gonna do spinoffs as Hobbs, he wants something that makes it uniquely different to stand out. I’m reminded of Hugh Jackman’s lament of X-Men Origins which, on top of just being a bad movie in general, to him felt like “X-Men 4″ rather than utilizing the freedom it had to be its own thing as its solo followups would do.
Agreed, except for the fact that Johnson seems wholly uninterested in making movies as opposed to making product.
Yeah, it makes sense. As long as they’re making these things forever they might as well shake it up a bit.
So, eventually, the Hobbs equivalent of Logan?
Socks are for candy asses!
My Dinner with Deckard
Just let them get married already. Also Hobbs and Shaw present: Junior 2.
Hobbs and Shaw: NomadlandMake it happen.
The Slow & the Gregarious
Dead Shaw: Stupid Fucking White Man
Hobbs, burned out from a life of shadowy government work and constantly shifting alliances, retires to a life on the road. When he needs a break from his van, he might crash on Shaw’s or Mr. Nobody’s couch, but after the life he’s had, it’s had to make real connections. Every now and then, he’ll take a temporary warehouse job – he says it’s for the money (despite a decent government pension), but really it’s just something to time. One day though, he sees a box overnighted from Japan, marked to one D Toretto. Manifest says it’s a head for a 2JZ, except no head for a 2JZ was ever that light (needs to be overbuilt to cope with 1000+hp). Now, random distribution warehouses don’t pay you to think, but old instincts kick in, and he just has to inspect it. It’s explosives, something with as much kick as two bottles of NOS (the big ones), rigged to go off when the box is opened.He might be distant from his family, but he can’t turn his back on his *Vin Diesel grumble* Fambly.
“…and the villain was going to be this bald douchebag named Dirk Petrol. He’s out for revenge after an explosion in a Jolly Ranchers factory showered him with shrapnel and left him a literal candy-ass.”
Dirk sends his henchman, Fellini, to take care of Hobbs.
If it was really an antithesis they’d get Bela Tarr in. Opens with a 15 minute panning shot of a garage, affectlessly moving past a grubby looking Vin Diesel in a ragged vest looking bitterly at a spanner. The only thing on the soundtrack is intermittent clanking and an unseen second person periodically having some sort of coughing fit. I would absolutely watch this.
I have a feeling Vin Diesel would try it out.
this just feels like code for ‘i’m still under contract for another one.’
I don’t think it’s as difficult as you think it is to walk away from a movie.
The essence of the franchise, as encapsulated in F9, is leaning into the dumbness. Sending a car to space? That’s pretty dumb – there are much better vehicles to navigate that environment than a Chevrolet – so yeah, let’s send a car to space! The antithesis of a F&F movie would, therefore, be smart, and I’d be all for that, except what he’s saying here is it would be antithetical in that it would be a one-off rather than just one more franchise designed to go on forever, and I’m all for that as well.
It would be smart but boring. It would be Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy but only the most boring parts. It’d be Jason Statham working at a research firm for 90% of the movie like it’s a normal day so you’re just watching him sit silently for an 8 hours with occasional trips to the bathroom or office kitchen. Then he copies some files onto a thumb drive and then drives two hours to a public park the middle of the nowhere in western Maryland to hide that thumb drive under a garbage can. Then a 15 minute shot of the garbage can sitting there. Then the Rock walks into frame and retrieves the thumb drive and walks away. The End.
Followed by a stinger in the credits in which we see the Rock slowly, methodically eat a bowl of corn flakes and then wash his bowl in the sink.
F9 went too far. It was too dumb and not fun enough to compensate. Five and Seven are the best for balancing out the stupid with sheer fun.
Boy, given his ability to say so little with so many words, if this whole acting thing doesn’t work out for Dwayne Johnson, he’d have a hell of a future as a corporate consultant!
I 100% believe this will be true and that when Hobbesier and Shawier comes out it will be much closer to My Dinner with Andre than any Fast & Furious movie. I’m sure!
You should be sure, because that’s definitely in any way what Johnson said.
Shaw is still a villain to me. Period. Fix this.
Judging from the ending of F9, they might be planning to address this in F10.
the “antithesis of what Fast And Furious movies generally are.” Hobbs & Shaw 2: Slow and Chill
My Dinner with Hobbs & Shaw
So, like, schlubby people driving compact cars slowly through regular streets to their jobs where they don’t commit crimes or go to space?
I’m pretty certain it’s just gonna be Hobbs jerking off in a mirror for 90 minutes.
Oh shit, then he’s been releasing it in small chunks on his social media for years now!
Chubby, plain-faced men and women without cars walk from location to location in an attempt to accurately pay their taxes.in“The Slow & The Tedious: Idaho Thrift”
I hope it means that there’ll be scenes of stoic women racing cars while a crowd of hunky men in crop tops and super short shorts dance around and cheer.
Finally I can be in a movie!… wait you said compact car, shit!
*Battlecar Compactica has entered the chat*
The Slow & the Chill?
I’m imagining Statham being all “Guess I’ll die” every moment while Johnson is talking about himself
Jesus. F this garbage Franchise and it’s mind numbing spin-off and shoot it into the sun already.It is unreal to me that people actually looove this shit. Un-Fucking-Real.
I’m just waiting for the next Jumanji, those are great.
Hobbs and Shaw on Gardeners’ Question Time.Hobbs and Shaw-nuts: Hobbs and Shaw run a cozy donut shop in downtown Portland.Hobbs and Shaw: Stumped!: like Ted Lasso, but Hobbs and Shaw have to coach a test cricket team to victory against an evil eleven filled with cyborg Idris Elba clones.
“San Andreas 2: San Francisco”
This would have been a better joke if at least half of the movie, including the entire climax, hadn’t already taken place in San Francisco.
The antithesis of a F&F movie? So it would be a thoroughly unwatchable slog fest that boils down to a cookie cutter fight scene where this douche and Jason Statham beat someone/something up and makes almost no money at the box office?Wasn’t that the formula that made the first one so successful? /s
So a movie that adheres, however loosely, to established laws of physics and basic common sense then?
Hobbs and Shaw 2 to be directed by Bela Tarr.
Hobbs and Shaw: Parliamentary procedure and taxation route disputes.
My Dinner With Shaw?
I think, for a “Hobbs movie” to really go against the grain, Johnson would need to be so far outside his usual comfort zone and the stock character he plays. He just seems dead-set against showing anything resembling vulnerability, humility, or even genuine joy in the movies he stars in. I’d love to be surprised, though, because his earlier movie career had a lot more variety to it.
Boats.
The antithesis of F&F? Schindler’s List or something??
“LET’S MAKE A NEW MOVIE BASED ON THE TOTAL OPPOSITE OF WHAT MADE MONEY BEFORE!” said no one ever – except The Rock.
Hobbs & Shaw still have those “all about Family” theme. Did the sequel will destroy all of Hobbs Samoan Family? Just keep Shaw’s sister intact please
Is there really anyone out there gunning for another San Andreas? I want Doc Savage news! 🙂
Maybe it could be like the final season of Ballers where almost all of his scenes were him by himself on his cell phone driving his car.
I want a dramatic reimagining of the ‘F&F’ series. Make it a Western, where the characters do all their usual ridiculous car stunts, but on horses. And to keep the product placement money coming in, they can drink at a saloon called “El Corona”.
Whatever they do, I just hope it has far less macho posturing between him and Statham. That shit was embarassing even by a 12 year old’s standards.
I enjoy the Rock playing varying shades of himself in movies, and he does seem charismatic on screen, but whenever I see his public appearances like this, he’s getting increasingly charmless and… sterile, is that the right word? Like he’s all appearances, all smiles but with dead eyes. He feels a bit up his arse, is what I’m saying.
A sense of weight to the fights and stunts and the slightest acknowledgement that the film’s world has the same physical characteristics as our own would be antithesis enough for me.
Fast and Furious presents Hobbs & Shaw with Socksthis time, it’s impersonal
My Dinner with HobbsETA: Dang, I am like the 5th person at best to post this joke, nvmnd