Fast X Footage Reaction: It's All About Family — Again [CinemaCon 2023]
Out in theaters next month, the tenth mainline "Fast & Furious" film "Fast X" is the most expensive one ever — and one of the most expensive movies of all time, in fact. The budget has ballooned to $340 million over the course of production, thanks to COVID-19 protocols, the original director Justin Lin quitting a week into filming, and a massive ensemble cast whose total wage bill now stands at $100 million. (Vin Diesel alone accounts for a fifth of that.)
It probably doesn't help that the cast just keeps growing with every new installment. This is going to take a while, bear with me. In addition to Diesel as Dom Toretto, there's Michelle Rodriguez as his wife Letty Ortiz, Tyrese Gibson as the wisecracking Roman Pearce, Ludacris and Nathalie Emmanuel as tech experts Tej Parker and Ramsey respectively, Jordana Brewster as Dom's sister Mia Toretto, Helen Mirren as militia leader Magdalene Shaw, and Charlize Theron as cyberterrorist Cipher.
Carrying over from "F9," we have Sung Kang as the always-munching Han Lue who we learned had faked his death; and John Cena as Dom and Mia's brother Jakob Toretto who was introduced last time around. And after sitting one out — he was busy with the spin-off "Hobbs & Shaw" — Jason Statham is back as Deckard Shaw in "Fast X." There will be cameo-level roles for Cardi B and Michael Rooker as well, both of whom were also in "F9."
That takes care of all major returning stars — but we are not done. The new "Fast" film introduces Jason Momoa as Dante Reyes, who wants revenge for his father's death in "Fast Five," Alan Ritchson as Agent Aimes replacing Kurt Russell's Mr. Nobody, Daniela Melchior as Brazilian street racer Isabel, Brie Larson as Mr. Nobody's daughter Tess, and Rita Moreno as Dom, Mia, and Jakob's grandmother Abuelita. Okay, now we're done!
Cipher and Dante are working together, as the first trailer for "Fast X" told us. (Dante blew up the Vatican in the second trailer.) And we got a better look at the next "Fast & Furious" at the ongoing CinemaCon 2023 in Las Vegas — where /Film's Ben Pearson is in attendance — thanks to the Universal Pictures panel. Here's what was shown.
A historic franchise
As always, our own Ben Pearson was in the room to relay all the info on the panelists and footage shown.
The "Fast X" CinemaCon presentation felt like it was beginning when Jim Orr, the president of domestic theatrical distribution for Universal, came onto the stage, promising that "Fast X" is "faster and more furious than anything you've ever seen before," but then the presentation got sidetracked for other films on Universal's slate.
They wanted to end strong and saved "Fast X" for their finale, bringing a ton of cast on stage including Michelle Rodriguez (who literally somersaulted onto the stage), Sung Kang, Tyrese, Jordana Brewster, and Vin Diesel. Diesel showed up dressed for success, wearing a white jacket with a big black X on the back, and instantly started hyping up the "Fast and Furious" films, saying with this new movie, F&F is now the longest franchise in motion picture history ... "with the same actors playing the same characters," he added after a pause.
It's a shaky qualification, but we'll let it pass because Vin is family, after all.
He also made it known that "Fast X" is the first film in history to have four Oscar-winning women in a single movie. We haven't fact-checked this yet, but he's not wrong about the ridiculously stacked cast.
Diesel very clearly was going off teleprompter here, tears in his eyes, as he thanked the theater owners in the room for believing in the franchise over the years, going so far as calling them "soldiers on the front line," before he finally let them roll footage from "Fast X."
Faster and Furiouser
Alan Ritchson's Agent Aimes opens the footage by laying out the history of the "Fast" gang for Brie Larson's character, Tess. "If it could be done in a car, they did it. If it violates the laws of God and gravity, they did it twice." This is said over footage from the previous films in which, yes, Toretto and friends do in fact defy the laws of God and gravity.
The footage moves on to show Dominic Toretto apparently captured in the back of Agent Aimes's car before it is hit with a missile, allowing Dom to escape. Then Jason Mamoa's Dante enters the picture, pulling up in a purple car.
"If you never got behind that wheel, I'd never be the man I am today. Now I'm going to break your family piece by piece. I'm Dante, enchante" Momoa says, and curtsies sarcastically to Dom.
Shaw and Han are seen teaming up to fight some bad guys ("Let's dig some graves," Jason Statham says), which would have blown the minds of just about any "Fast and Furious" fan just a couple movies ago, by the way.
Anyway, as you can imagine there were lots of shots of cars racing through the streets of Rome, a fight between Michelle Rodriguez's Letty and Charlize Theron's Cipher in a lab of some sort while both of them are wearing white and even the introduction of "Tiny Tej," a miniature remote controlled car with a bobblehead of Lucaris's character mounted on it.
The footage concluded with a showdown on top of a dam. Dom and his son are in his Charger facing off against Mamoa's Dante and his goons. Two trucks are about to slam into Dom's charger, so he does the only logical thing: he drives off of the dam to escape, resulting in the two trucks slamming into each other and exploding into a massive fireball, the flames licking the back tires of Dom's Charger as he drives down the wall of the dam.
"Fast X" arrives in theaters May 19, 2023.