As a veteran film series, the “Fast & Furious” series has now reached its ninth part, and the producers are currently planning to end the series in the tenth part, and producer and star Vin Diesel will continue to be in charge of the film’s production. .
Johnson was absent from “F9: The Fast Saga” due to a serious conflict between Vin Diesel and another core actor, Dwayne Johnson, in the eighth installment of the series.
With the overall decline in the film’s performance and word of mouth, coupled with the pressure from the producer Universal Pictures, Vin Diesel once again invited Johnson to return to the series.
However, Johnson’s attitude is very clear, that is, refuse, wish the “Fast & Furious” crew success, but he will not participate.
With Johnson refusing to return, the “Fast & Furious” series suddenly lacked a major selling point, and Vin Diesel had to hunt around for famous actors willing to join, only to find two.
One of them is Jason Momoa, the tough guy who plays Aquaman in the dc universe, and the other is Brie Larson, the strong heroine who plays Captain Marvel in the Marvel universe.
Purely from the lineup point of view, “Fast & Furious 10” can be said to be very complete.
In addition to Vin Diesel himself, John Cena, who is very popular in Northern America, and Jason Statham may also return. Charlize Theron, the goddess, still exists as the villain. Now there are two more popular actors.
However, again, does the extravagant cast mean that the movie can be successful?
The answer is of course no.
In fact, the success and failure of the “Fast & Furious” series, as long as you look at it from the beginning, will find the problem, not just the so-called cast.
The two most well-received films in the entire series are the fifth and seventh films. Is the cast of these two films as luxurious as the tenth film?
Although the fifth part is a speeding family gathering mode similar to “Avengers Assemble”, the actors who can really be called “coffee” are only the family boss Vin Diesel and No. 2 Paul Walker, plus friends and enemies. Just Dwayne Johnson.
At that time, Wonder Woman Gal Gadot, whose worth was not so high, was just a marginal actor.
With the cast of three stars, they made the best series. Why?
In fact, in the past Hollywood, you can often see some well-made movies, using some actors who are not very famous, so that many audiences can recognize the face, but can’t call their name. situation arises.
As for the other best “Furious 7” in the series, Jason Statham, a tough guy, has been added to the cast, which can be said to be one more big name.
The film’s final global box office exceeded 1.5 billion US dollars, and it entered the top ten of the film box office that year, almost double the performance of the previous work.
However, as long as the discerning person knows, although Jason’s joining has made the movie a lot, but the “Furious 7” explosion is not due to him alone.
Among them are director James Wan’s wild and unrestrained racing creative design, as well as the regret of Paul Walker’s death, as well as the marketing of various brotherhoods, etc. The combination of various elements has created a film with the highest score in the entire series.
So, the cast is another thing for other movie series, but it is very important for “Fast & Furious”, but it does not reach the point of “determining success or death”.
So the question is, what is the key to the success or failure of this series of films?
The answer is the attitude, or the attitude of the producer, the orientation of the producer and the star Vin Diesel to the creation.
Like many Hollywood franchises, producers wield enormous power over filmmaking, and “Fast & Furious” is no exception.
Vin Diesel’s position and right to speak in it can almost be said to cover the sky, especially his sister is still a senior executive of Universal Pictures.
To put it simply, the direction of the “Fast & Furious” series is largely based on his ideas. As for Vin Diesel’s path to the film, it is also very simple.
Described in four words is “the protagonist is invincible”, this direction, to put it bluntly, is also the core reason why the whole series is getting worse and worse.
Some people may disagree with this, because any commercial popcorn movie of this kind must be exaggerated, and it is normal for the protagonist to have a halo.
But in fact, the reason is also very simple, that is, the so-called things cannot exceed that degree. Under the controllable range, these elements cannot have too much influence on the film, and can even make it more exciting to some extent.
However, what if it’s too much? What will happen then?
This is too general, so let’s take a concrete example.
From the three movies “Fast Five” to “Furious 7”, it is obvious that the protagonist Vin Diesel has his aura, but the performance of the actor who also plays with him is not inferior to him.
For example, in “Fast Five”, Johnson and his strong dialogue, the two went from evenly matched opponents, one-on-one, to later cooperation to defeat the enemy.
In other words, the two are basically on an equal position. At most, Vin Diesel wins because of his protagonist status, and he is only slightly heavier.
“Furious 6”, the villain is very strong, and Vin Diesel must rely on his own speed car family and the help of Johnson to compete with it.
Even so, the death of Giselle, played by Gal Gadot, could not be avoided in the end.
What is all this for? First, the protagonist’s halo is not enough, Vin Diesel can’t do everything alone like the later films; second, it shows the strength of the enemy and maintains the balance.
Not to mention, this approach can be said to be very in place, the protagonist group has a halo, but it is not the Dragon Proud Sky team, nor is the first protagonist Vin Diesel’s one-man show.
In “Furious 7”, although the trend of the protagonist Vin Diesel is still beginning to dominate.
But due to the addition of Jason Statham and another level of competition with Johnson, and the death of Paul Walker, Vin Diesel must leave enough scenes for him.
Coupled with the insistence of director James Wan, the overall situation of the movie remains within control, and the aura of the protagonist is acceptable to the audience.
Of course, the most important of these is that James Wan’s various unrestrained creative ideas largely lock the audience’s eyes on the visual impact picture on the big screen, weakening the taste of the protagonist’s halo.
It is precisely because of this that “Furious 5-7”, two of which are the highest rated in the series, and one is an important work in which the series has opened up a higher profile in the world, especially in East Asia.
However, after that, due to the taste of “off-screen elements” in “Furious 7” and the need for “short and smooth” production, Vin Diesel began to adjust the direction of the series to a one-man show of the boss of the speeding car.
As a result, the situation mentioned above occurred, the protagonist’s halo was too bright, and the film had too many off-site links.
The speed boss played by Vin Diesel needed teammates’ assistance in the sixth and seventh episodes, but in “The Fate of the Furious”, it instantly became enough to fight against all the other protagonists including Johnson and Jason. Unparalleled Warrior.
In terms of script, it used to belong to the consideration of popcorn commercials, not for excellence but for passing, but this one has also become a “routine” at the beginning, not logic but only for cutscenes.
So the audience can see that the villain Theron knocked down all the people in the protagonist group, but just didn’t do anything to them, just kissed Vin Diesel and left.
Not to mention the “F9: The Fast Saga”, which is known as the drama, the protagonist Vin Diesel has basically become a superhero.
He is so strong that he can easily deal with dozens of elite soldiers in heavy armor, and his bones are so hard that he can fall into the sea from a height of 100 meters, not to mention other links that violate the basic logic.
As mentioned above, popcorn commercials can be exaggerated to a certain extent, but this kind of brainless tout is too much, it is meaningless, and it will only make people feel uncomfortable.
Going back to the beginning, if “Fast & Furious” is shot like this, does the cast still matter?
Adding a Captain Marvel, adding an Aquaman, is actually completely useless.
Why? Because the protagonist of Vin Diesel can do everything alone, Aquaman and the others just need to wait to be knocked down easily or cheer on the side.
Even foreign audiences know this. They made a lot of peripherals to show that Vin Diesel has turned into a “family man” in the movie, belongs to a member of superheroes, and is very powerful in combat.
Therefore, if the production attitude and direction of “Fast & Furious” do not change, the cast will be the same no matter how luxurious it is.
Because the actors are all green leaves that foil, they all exist to foil the protagonist, and there will never be a wonderful commercial film pair with strong dialogues like before.
In view of this kind of work, it can only be said that there is not much expectation.
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