It has been 20 years since the "Fast and Furious" series was born, and so far, there have been 9 films with a total of 10 canons and 1 sequel.
The flying car family on the screen, all kinds of heaven and earth, show no mercy to the enemy, and are as harmonious as family to the people in the team, giving the audience a feeling that the actors have a good relationship.
However, in fact, the crew of "Rapid Shock", the actors are not as friendly as they seem, and there are many things worth talking about.
This time, let's talk about the internal story of the flying car family in reality.
Due to the large number of films in this series, this time it mainly talks about the behind-the-scenes of 1 to 5 films, and the 6 to 9 and the sequels will be mentioned in the next article.
In 1998, a director named Rob Cohen personally observed an illegal street racing race in Los Angeles late at night.
The sound of tires rumbling at the scene, as well as all kinds of young boys and girls gathered together, left a very deep impression on his heart.
Two years later, Rob signed an action film contract with Hollywood giant Universal Pictures, and Universal Pictures was very reassured about him and gave him the subject matter to play freely.
At this time, Rob is ready to reintroduce the street racing game from 2 years ago on the big screen.
That's where the first Fast and Furious came from.
The theme determines the racing, and the specific plot, Rob took inspiration from Keanu Reeves's "Ultimate Pride" in 1991, preparing to make "Super 1" a story of a police protagonist going undercover into the inside of the flying car family.
When the project is finalized, it comes to the most important link.
Casting.
Rob and producer Neil had previously worked with Paul Walker on a Skull Club movie, and the two had a very good impression of Paul as a young man, so they invited him to be the film's male number one Brian.
After reading the script, Paul resolutely agreed to act.
At the same time, another important role in the script, the leader of the Flying Car family, Donald Boss, has also been selected by the producer.
The candidate was Timothy Orliphant.
However, Timothy was not at all interested in the role of Donald.
In desperation, the film finally found Van Diesel to play the role of Donald Boss.
Super 1 is a low-budget cop action film, and the theme of the film is street racing.
Brian, played by Paul, is the absolute male number one in the film, whether it is to promote the plot or the role at the core of the story.
And Donald Boss, played by Van Diesel, is also a very attractive character, but only the male number two.
Just like many Hong Kong police films, undercover always has to intersect with gang bosses, and many of these gang bosses are also very well portrayed.
However, they are never the protagonists.
"Super 1" due to its excellent quality, word of mouth and box office have exceeded expectations.
Universal Pictures hit the iron while it was hot and ready to launch a sequel.
However, at this time, the problem occurred.
Van Diesel has always been very concerned that he is not the first male protagonist in the series, in fact, his performance in "Super 1" is indeed very eye-catching.
The script of "Super 2" is still based on Brian, played by Paul, as the first protagonist, which makes him very dissatisfied.
As a result, Van Diesel refused to participate in the sequel, and by the way, he abducted the director Rob, after all, van Diesel's commercial value was not inferior to Paul's because of the success of "Super 1".
Rob and Van Diesel left Universal and went to Sony Pictures to make another movie, "Extreme Agent", in which Van Baldhead finally passed the protagonist's addiction.
Universal Pictures, on the other hand, which lost its backbone, had to postpone Super 2 for a year, finding a new director, producing a new script, and adding a black character to partner paul.
However, the performance of "Super 2" was shocking, not only did it not perform as well as the previous work, but it was also nominated for the best sequel film of the Golden Plum (Bad Film Award).
Due to the fluttering of "Super 2", the filmmaker Universal Pictures was very panicked, and the executives immediately hoped that Paul would continue to return to the third part, and once again invited Van Diesel to return as the star.
In this regard, Fan Guangtou is explicitly rejected, after all, "starring in a sequel to a bad film selected for the Golden Plum Award is not a good idea", he only agreed to a cameo.
At the same time, Paul also considers whether the third part will return.
In this regard, Universal Pictures took a heart and decided to restart the entire series directly in the third part.
Thus, "Tokyo Drift", which is like a sequel, was released.
The film itself is of poor quality, with worse results than the second one.
The only contribution was sung-kang's role of Han, who would become a resident of the series in the future.
However, although the third "Rapid Shock" failed, Paul and Fan Baldhead at the same time were not happy.
The films in which the two of them starred in each other also suffered various box office disadvantages in business.
At this time, a very important thing happened, and it can even be said that it affected the entire series.
Van Diesel's younger sister became a top executive at Universal Pictures.
Thanks to the help of his sister and because of his unsuccessful career, Van Diesel took the lead in discussing with other executives at Universal about the idea of restarting "Rapid" again.
In the end, it was decided that "Super 4" with his Fan Bald Head as the absolute protagonist, he even became the producer of the "Rapid Shock" series, with great power.
However, when Universal contacted Paul, Paul expressed his reluctance to return.
There are two reasons for this.
First, Paul was starring in a movie that hit the street continuously, and he could no longer take any risks, and the second and third parts of "Rapid Shock" did not do well, and if "Super 4" pounced again, it would be a fatal blow to his career.
Second, Fan Bald head is a producer, and as a protagonist, Paul understands very well what this means, as the first male protagonist of the series, I am afraid that life will not be good.
Interestingly, Van Diesel, who learned of Paul's concerns, personally invited Paul and said with a very sincere look that "Super 4" would be successful and would definitely bring our two careers back to life.
In the end, Paul was persuaded to join the cast.
However, soon after joining the cast, Van Diesel revealed his true colors.
According to some of Paul's friends, Paul had retired to the second oldest at that time, and did not have any idea of "fighting for the first", but Fan Guangtou still kept showing him his face, and used his identity as a producer to deliberately harass Paul in terms of remuneration and other aspects.
Some foreign media also know the situation of the two leading actors, and even fanned the flames, always posting some such as "Paul and Van Diesel, which is more suitable for the protagonist of "Rapid"?" " and so on articles.
However, Paul did not choose to be tough, but in order to calm things down, keep outside of working hours, and privately try to avoid meeting van Diesel.
Of course, Paul's bowing is worth it from a career perspective.
"Super 4" received a good reputation after its release, which saved the entire series.
Van Diesel and Paul also washed their decadence with this film.
By the time Of Super 5, Universal saw that the racing theme had come to an end, so it asked the whole film to "expand its direction".
That's right, so this one is the dividing point of the whole series.
The movies before "Super 5" were low-budget racing cars and cop movies.
At the beginning of "Super 5", it directly became a secret agent film, intersecting with the army, and the enemy also became some large-scale organization across internationals.
Because of the expansion of the worldview, the fifth film brings together all the previous characters and establishes a new theme--- logging tired (family).
This was praised by many people at the time.
Secondly, the addition of another bald tough guy, Dwayne Johnson, also added a lot of color to the whole movie.
After the release of "Super 5", both the box office and the word of mouth were very good, and most people thought that this was the best quality and best quality filmed in the series.
However, the excellent performance of the film cannot hide the contradiction between the two leading actors.
At that time, due to van Diesel's constant suppression, Paul was on the verge of collapse.
In the interview, Paul unceremoniously said that he did not know if he could get along with another lead actor anymore.
Because many times, he wants to smash the other person's bald head, and the other party also wants to break his head.
Paul did not know at the time that Van Diesel, who wanted to break his head, had inexplicably become his "best brother" a few years later.
Of course, this is an afterthought.