Meet the director hired to bring ‘Fast & Furious’ saga home
LOS ANGELES: One year ago, Louis Leterrier was in Los Angeles finishing a project when he received the late-night call that would change his fate. Surely it was a mistake, he thought. Had the head of Universal accidentally butdialed him?
It was Peter Cramer, the studio’s president, and he was calling with a script and an urgent request for a meeting at 6 am the next day. Leterrier didn’t bother sleeping, reading it over twice. Within days, the French filmmaker was on a last-minute flight to London, buckling up for the craziest ride of his career: taking over as director on Universal’s mega summer sequel “Fast X.”
The blockbuster was a week into production and locked into a release date when the sudden exit of longtime helmer Justin Lin, who had directed five of the previous nine films including 2021’s “F9,” threw Universal’s $6 billion “Fast and Furious” franchise into chaos. The mad dash for a new director happened so fast that the opportunity was overwhelming, said Leterrier.
But he loved the “Fast” films. He’d been up for directing earlier installments. It was his dream to direct a “Fast” movie, his wife reminded him as he sped through a series of high-level interviews before franchise star and producer Vin Diesel officially awarded him the job. “I’ve seen all the movies. I really was a fan,” he told the LA Times ahead of the film’s May 19 premiere. “And it was the one that got away.”
Leterrier’s eclectic career made him an ideal candidate. He’d made his debut with the 2002 actioner “The Transporter,” directed the Jet Li film “Unleashed” and worked on the fantasy epic “Clash of the Titans.” He helmed the magician ensemble “Now You See Me” and even took a detour into puppetry with the acclaimed Neflix series “The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance.”
And he had maintained good relationships with Universal ater directing 2008 Marvel outing “The Incredible Hulk,” which landed him on the short list to replace Lin. “He knew a lot of the actors already. He understands action. He’s done visual effects. He’s done drama,” said Cramer. “He really was the perfect guy to step in at a moment’s notice and take over, which is what he did.”
Billed as the beginning of the end for one of Hollywood’s biggest, most lasting franchises, “Fast X” finds Dominic Toreto (Diesel) scrambling to protect his extended family of loved ones and friends when a new madman, Dante (Jason Momoa) materialises from the past seeking vengeance.
The first in a two-part story that takes place in Rome, London, Turin, Portugal and Los Angeles, its ensemble includes core Toreto crew Lety (Michelle Rodriguez), Mia (Jordana Brewster), Han (Sung Kang), Roman (Tyrese Gibson), Tej (Chris “Ludacris” Bridges) and Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel); Dom’s recently un-estranged brother Jakob (John Cena); ex-enemy Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham); former big bad Cipher (Charlize Theron); and newcomers Tess (Brie Larson), Abuela Toreto (Rita Moreno) and Aimes (Alan Ritchson). (Lin, who remains a producer, is credited with the screenplay alongside Dan Mazeau.)
The franchise may have begun humbly as the brooding bromantic saga of DVD player-stealing LA street racers, but it has swelled to increasingly bombastic heights. Cars have fought planes, helicopters and submarines, skydived and, yes, even launched into space. Characters have suffered amnesia, returned from the dead and unearthed previously unknown siblings over the course of 10 feature films, including the Statham-dwayne Johnson spin-off “Hobbs & Shaw.”
But for all its onscreen antics and soap-opera twists, the “Fast” films have an undeniable pull with audiences, says Leterier, who has been geeking out over their action sequences for years and remembers the excitement he and Statham felt when they went to see the 2001 original in France while filming “The Transporter.”
“They’re the ne plus ultra of action filmmaking. The ‘Fast and Furious’ set pieces are always amazing because they have three acts within it — there’s a beginning, a middle and (an) end, and you never lose the characters within the action,” he says. “Then Jason got the job and became Shaw, and I was very jealous.”