R-Rated Movie Coming To A PG-13 Billion-Dollar Franchise?
A certain billion-dollar franchise might have an R-rated movie entering its ranks. It would be a departure from what they have done before.
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The Fast and Furious is one of the biggest, most successful movie franchises on the planet. Going strong after almost twenty years, the PG-13 blockbusters have cemented their place in pop culture. But one of its stars would love to see the films take a slightly darker tone. Sung Kang, who plays Han in the franchise, hopes to see a Fast and Furious film that’s R-Rated before the story wraps forever.
To date, there hasn’t been a movie in the Fast and Furious saga with an R-rating. And stepping away from the (somewhat) family-friendly tone would be an interesting turn for the story. However, it would also mean changing a lot about what’s made the series so successful.
Actor, Sung Kang would really like that to change, even if that happens in a spin-off movie. In an interview with ScreenRant, the Fast and Furious star talked about his R-Rated, darker, grittier vision for the franchise. “I’d like to see the Fast films, at least one of them, go rated R,” he told the publication. “Go super dark, to see where that could go. I don’t know which character that’s going to be, somebody has to go dark, really dark. And maybe it would be cool to see.”
If the Fast and Furious franchise does take on an R-Rated twist, it would likely have to be in some kind of character solo movie, as Kang suggests. But the move is probably unlikely. An R-rated film would mean less box office earnings for a mainline franchise. And it’s difficult to imagine that the Fast Saga would change its core tone for one of the last movies in the series.
Meanwhile, the 10th installment of Vin Diesel’s Fast and Furious franchise is set to race into theaters on April 7, 2023. Justin Lin will direct the penultimate movie in the popular action series and will return for the final installment as well. Lin has directed five Fast films starting with 2006’s The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. And Chris Morgan is returning to write the script.
Vin Diesel previously revealed to Entertainment Weekly that filming would begin in January 2022, with the possibility of Fast 10 and Fast 11 being filmed back-to-back to wrap up the pop culture phenomenon. Diesel also implied that the finals two films would be epic. “Just wait for 10,” the actor said, “Let’s just say, the fact that you guys know that the studio is saying we can’t cover all this ground that needs to be covered in just one movie, you can only imagine what is to come.”
Although the cast has not been officially revealed yet, franchise star Vin Diesel is expected to return along with Tyrese Gibson, Sung Kang, Chris Bridges, Jordana Brewster, and Michelle Rodriguez. According to the publication, it’s unclear if John Cena will reprise his role as Jakob Toretto. Ahead of F9’s release, the Suicide Squad star said he wasn’t allowing himself to think about the future of his character.
