Fast And Furious 11 Screenwriter Hopes The Upcoming Sequel Will Be Most Similar To This Other Fast Film [Exclusive]

The credited director of the 2023 ultra-actioner "Fast X" was Louis Leterrier, who was brought in after the original director, Justin Lin, left due to "creative differences." The phrase "creative differences," however, is Hollywood codespeak for any number of things, and /Film delved into the real reasons Lin left in the past. The production of "Fast X" was chaotic, and one fight scene was shot when the movie didn't have a director. It cost a blinding $378.8 million to make and underperformed, earning only $714.4 million (which is low for the "Fast and Furious" series). "Fast X" ended on a cliffhanger, though, so a sequel was necessary. 

It was announced back in January that the next film in the series will be called "Fast Forever" and is slated for release in March of 2028. Back in April of 2024, it was announced that it would be written by Oren Uziel, a Hollywood veteran who is the credited screenwriter or co-screenwriter on films like "The Lost City," several "Mortal Kombat" projects, "The Cloverfield Paradox," and "22 Jump Street." Most recently, he has become the developer and showrunner of the TV series "Spider-Noir." The project has had other screenwriters announced, however, so how much of Uziel's ideas make it into the final film will remain a mystery. 

Uziel has high hopes for "Fast Forever," as he revealed to /Film's own Ben Pearson in a recent interview. Uziel noted that the next film may not go as big as the last few movies. Indeed, he would like for the next film to be a ground-level story ... like the original "The Fast and the Furious." There was a time when the films were about race car drivers who stole DVD players from trucks. Maybe we need to get back to that. 

It seems impossible to make this series any bigger than it already is. The last few "Fast and Furious" movies have been gigantic movies with enormous budgets, sprawling ensembles, and action sequences larger than anything in cinema history. The next film, the screenwriter said, will try to go back to basics, which seems like a wise choice. Trying to win audiences back after the outsize craziness of "F9" and "Fast X" will not be as effective as scaling back the story, keeping the races practical, and presumably focusing on character. 

To get a line on "Fast Forever," Ben Pearson asked Orel Uziel which previous movie in the franchise it would — if he had his way — most closely resemble, to which he replied: 

"I hope it's the most similar to the first one. It needs to get back to it ... I would love it to get back to its roots. And once you've been to space, you want to bring things a little bit back down to earth, and the cars are so practical. Let's get back to engines and gears." 

The "been to space" comment is, of course, a reference to a scene in "F9" wherein the characters of Tej (Chris "Ludiacris" Bridges) and Roman (Tyrese Gibson) launch a car into orbit, made up to withstand the zero-G sojourn. 

"Fast X," meanwhile, ended with a crashed plane, an exploding dam, and Dom (Vin Diesel) unsure which way to run. "Fast Forever," to continue that thread, can either make a $400 million, 160-minute, physics-hating kookiness fest, or it can do what Uziel hopes, and pivot to really cool, lower-stakes car chases that play by the actual laws of physics. 

This seems wise to me.