To get the most out of what's set to be one of the biggest, most unmissable blockbusters
of the summer and possibly the year, we've rounded up the tidbits and plot details you'll
want to brush up on.
Here's everything you need to know before you see Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs and
Shaw.
When the character is first introduced in Fast Five, Johnson's Agent Luke Hobbs is a
straitlaced do-gooder in the Diplomatic Security Service.
As a result, he spends the majority of that movie tracking down Vin Diesel's Dominic Toretto
in a bid to stop Dom and his crew from pulling off the most outlandish heist Rio has ever
seen.
But it's not long before Hobbs grudgingly sees the good in the gang, and decides to
work with them.
The vault of money they're heisting belongs to drug lord Hernan Reyes, who is so peeved
about his profits getting plundered that he kills Hobbs' entire team and attempts to frame
Toretto and his gang for the hit.
But Hobbs is smarter than the average beefcake and collaborates with the Fast crew to get
even with Reyes.
Fast Five marked the beginning of a fruitful relationship between Hobbs and Toretto's gang,
with Hobbs growing to understand the complicated gray area between being a good guy and a bad
guy.
Here's where the soap opera leanings of the Fast and Furious franchise really start going
into overdrive.
When Hobbs returns in Fast and Furious 6, he teams up with the gang again to take down
terrorist Owen Shaw.
Shaw ends up in a coma after his battle with the Fast Family, but there's also a twist
ending which introduces Jason Statham as Owen's brother, Deckard Shaw.
A post-credits scene reveals that he was behind team member Han's death in The Fast and Furious:
Tokyo Drift.
Although Tokyo Drift is the third film of the franchise, it takes place between the
events of Fast & Furious 6 and Furious 7.
Deckard continues as the baddie in Furious 7, but he's grudgingly forced to make nice
with the Fast gang to get even with the big bad in Fate of the Furious.
Still, even by the end of the film, Shaw is pretty clear about the fact that none of his
baby-saving action scenes made him a willing member of Toretto's "family."
"I can't believe you went to see my mother."
That makes him the perfect foil for Hobbs.
One of the biggest reasons Hobbs and Shaw have such an entertaining dynamic is that
they have complementary character arcs within the series.
While Hobbs has realized that he sometimes has to break a few laws and collaborate with
criminals to save the day, Shaw has discovered that he sometimes needs the help of good guys
to carry out his dirty deeds.
Their conflicting sets of morals and goals has given them one of the most fascinating
and hilarious relationships in the franchise.
As highlighted by the prison break scene from the Fate of the Furious, these two rivals
are often forced to fight alongside each other while also fighting against each other.
Speaking to IGN, director David Leitch has copped to the fact that Hobbs and Shaw was
influenced by the buddy cop movies he grew up loving:
"There's these buddy movies from the '80s and '90s like Lethal Weapon and 48 Hours that
really speak to me as a filmmaker."
If you've caught even just five minutes of a Fast and Furious movie, then you already
know just how important family is to the franchise.
"I don't have friends.
I got family."
Not only is it Toretto's favorite word and motive for committing crimes, but those family
values also provide the backbone for much of the franchise's major plots.
Hobbs and Shaw looks to be extending these values from the franchise to the spinoff,
too.
Not only is noted Fast and Furious superfan Helen Mirren returning to play Shaw's rough-and-ready
mother, but his sister, played by Vanessa Kirby, is also showing up as a main character.
Hattie Shaw, an MI-5 agent, looks to be bringing some serious trouble in Hobbs and Shaw's direction.
She'll be appealing to Shaw's loyalty to family and Hobbs' loyalty to saving the world in
taking down Idris Elba's villainous Brixton.
But it isn't just Shaw's brood that'll be a major part of the movie.
Though we haven't seen much of Hobbs' family in the franchise so far, it looks as though
Hobbs and Shaw will be introducing audiences to Hobbs' full Samoan family.
The most recent trailer for the movie teases a massive set piece involving Hobbs' family,
who look like they'll be putting their traditional fighting skills to good use in helping their
brother defeat Brixton's endless squad of bad guys.
Interestingly, the family connection doesn't end there: Johnson's cousin, WWE wrestler
Roman Reigns, will be swinging a sledgehammer of family justice as Hobbs' brother.
Speaking to Empire, Leitch has teased great things for the battle sequence, particularly
for fans of a good old-fashioned smackdown.
"Roman Reigns and Dwayne teaming up as sort of a tag team against a couple of mercenaries
is pretty awesome.
It's going to be a huge treat for wrestling fans."
Bringing a new villainous dimension to the Fast and Furious franchise, and adding to
the already stellar roster of actors in the series, is Idris Elba as Brixton.
The self-proclaimed "black Superman" looks to be one of the most powerful foes Hobbs
and Shaw have encountered thus far.
"Damn.
He really is black Superman."
Described in the official plot description as a "cyber-genetically enhanced anarchist,"
Brixton is a supervillain who appears to be abusing technology to make himself harder,
bigger, faster, stronger.
Oh, and it looks like he's bulletproof to boot.
With trailers for Hobbs and Shaw showing the villain using technology to bulk up and hulk
out while also threatening the world with an insidious bio-threat, Brixton promises
to be a next-level heavy.
Asked by Collider whether he wanted to build a whole new world of characters for Hobbs
and Shaw or borrow some familiar faces from the franchise, Leitch sounds like he's open
to the idea of cameos:
"I think it' be fun to nod and have a couple of the characters come by and make their appearances.
But I think we have a really strong point of view that we want to create our own characters
for this world."
That certainly sounds like the answer of a man holding his cards close to the vest, as
he should be.
Surprise cameos of this nature always work best when they're at their most unexpected.
Still, we perhaps shouldn't rule out a brief surprise appearance from beloved characters
like Ludacris' Tej Parker or Tyrese Gibson's Roman Pearce.
However, the greatest and most unexpected cameo may come from someone outside the existing
Fast family.
Keanu Reeves was rumored to make an appearance in the film, but unfortunately The Rock himself
shot down that much-anticipated cameo in a conversation with MTV News, saying:
"I will confirm that he's not in it, by the way.
That rumor just started to kind of swell.
But I will tell you this, we do have some surprises coming."
Just what those surprises could be is anyone's guess.
Could it be the return of Han?
A surprise casting for a Shaw patriarch?
Or could The Rock just be blowing a smokescreen to make the Keanu cameo hit even harder?
Don't get your hopes up for a cameo appearance from Vin Diesel in Hobbs and Shaw, though,
not even at the traditional post-action barbecue.
Not only is Hobbs and Shaw looking to establish its own cinematic universe without Toretto,
but there's still the alleged beef between Diesel and Johnson to deal with.
That beef surfaced in August 2016 during the last week of filming Fate of the Furious,
when Johnson published a cryptic Instagram post which implied that an anonymous co-star
wasn't conducting himself as a, quote, "true professional" and that fans could see his
blood, quote, "legit boiling" in some scenes.
The feud seemed to drag on for months under the guise of vague social media back-and-forths,
with Michelle Rodriguez even confirming it to People:
“They’re ‘bros,’ man.
They’re friends, and ultimately even friends reach a point where they have to set aside
their differences to make a movie for multicultural people around the world, and that is the bigger
scheme of things.”
The two have since reportedly buried the hatchet, with Johnson telling Entertainment Tonight
that he and Diesel are simply different people:
"Just like, in life, you have different philosophies and people have different fundamental philosophies
on how you do things."
Meanwhile, Diesel said of his co-star:
"We still love each other.
That's my boy."
The Fast and Furious franchise has built a reputation for itself as one of the boldest,
most ridiculous, and bombastic action film series ever made.
With Leitch directing Hobbs and Shaw and regular Fast and Furious writer Chris Morgan behind
the screenplay, the spinoff looks as though it's in capable hands for maintaining that
reputation.
Not only did Morgan pen the first film, he's also the man behind the genius resurgence
of the franchise from Fast Five onwards.
He's the writer who looked at the ludicrously giant action sequences already delivered by
the franchise and said, "No, let's go bigger."
"Start out stealing DVD players in East LA and ends up stealing 100 million dollars in
Rio."
"Not bad, huh?"
Meanwhile, Leitch might be one of Hollywood's most highly sought after and respected action
directors.
The former stuntman directed Atomic Blonde and Deadpool 2 and co-directed the first John
Wick.
He's the perfect director to bring into the franchise at this moment, and he's sure to
put his own frenetic, sardonic spin on the series with Hobbs and Shaw.
As you're probably well aware from having watched and rewatched the trailers for Hobbs
and Shaw with your mouth swinging open in awe, we've already seen a lot of action.
But for those afraid that the promo clips have given away the movie's best set pieces,
Chris Morgan is here to set those fears at ease, telling Empire that there's more to
come:
"We have so much that we're holding back.
This is a blink of the action in the film.
A blink.”
It's a gutsy claim to make, but a believable one.
After all, if you compare the trailers that were released for Fate of the Furious with
the actual film, it's easy to see how the promos barely scratched the surface.
With so much action and story to tell, there's also a fair chance that Hobbs and Shaw could
share a similar running time to Fate of the Furious, which gave audiences an epic, 150-minute
cinematic ride.
If you're giddy at the prospect of Hobbs and Shaw enjoying their own series of films rather
than just one standalone spinoff, you're in luck.
Leitch has confirmed that Hobbs and Shaw is intended as the first movie of an ongoing
franchise.
The director told Collider:
"We're starting a franchise.
So we want it to be a little bit more grounded, it's a little bit more character-centric.
We're going to set up the stakes for these guys and their relationship."
If that sounds a little slow for a Fast & Furious movie, you've got nothing to worry about.
"We're also going to have some great set pieces and some action that you'd expect from that
type of franchise, you know, it's something that opens in summer."
Awesome though that may be, there is a downside: It means that Hobbs and Shaw probably won't
be starring in Fast and Furious 9 while their own respective franchise gets going.
The long-running Fast and Furious franchise could be coming to an end after the next couple
of films, but it seems as though the saga's creative team is already putting plans in
place to keep the series alive in new and exciting ways.
Hobbs and Shaw is the first of many planned Fast and Furious spinoffs.
On top of a theme park ride, Diesel has also teased that a Fast and Furious movie with
a woman in the lead may be coming soon.
In an Instagram post shared at the beginning of 2019, Diesel revealed that he and producer
Samantha Vincent had heard a pitch at Universal for just such a movie.
Judging by his Instagram caption, it sounds like it went well:
"There are three new spin offs that we have promised Universal…this week we heard a
pitch for the Fast female protagonist driven spinoff I created in 2017, and you can tell
by the smile on Samantha's face it was VERY exciting."
In the meantime, we'll just have to live like Dom:
"I live my life a quarter-mile at a time."
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