Exclusive: Ryan Reynolds And Kevin Hart Joining Dwayne Johnson In Fast & Furious Spinoff
We've learned Ryan Reynolds and Kevin Hart will both be joining Dwayne Johnson in his recently announced Fast and Furious standalone spinoff.
Yesterday, Dwayne Johnson confirmed he’ll soon be starring in his own Fast and Furious spinoff, but he won’t be alone. Our trusted and proven sources tell us both Ryan Reynolds and Kevin Hart have signed on to join The Rock in his standalone. Both Reynolds and Hart make cameos in 2019’s Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw and will presumably reprise those roles, but there’s an extra question mark hovering over Reynolds.
Loyal fans of Dom Toretto’s “family” will no doubt remember that in Hobbs & Shaw it’s Ryan Reynolds as CIA Agent Victor Locke — an old friend who has a creepy obsession with The Rock‘s hero — who recruits Hobbs to work with Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham). It’s only a cameo, but Reynolds wound up having another part in the flick. It’s the Deadpool star voicing the mysterious Eteon Director who gives the cybernetic bad guy Brixton (Idris Elba) his marching orders, which has led some to speculate Reynolds could reveal himself as the villain in a subsequent movie.
In 2019 The Hollywood Reporter asked David Leitch — who directed Ryan Reynolds in both Deadpool 2 and Hobbs & Shaw — whether or not there was a plan for Reynolds to play the Eteon Director. His answer was a resounding shrug:
“I’ll be honest: there’s no final decision. I think we wanted to leave it open-ended… We want this thing to live on for a while, and we want these characters to have many adventures. We just felt it was too early to say, ‘Here’s our next adventure.'”
-David Leitch, director of Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw
There were also rumors that Keanu Reeves was in talks to play the Eteon Director in Hobbs & Shaw — which Leitch confirmed — so it’s always possible that instead of Ryan Reynolds, the John Wick star will play enigmatic antagonist. Then again, while we know that both Reynolds and Hart will show up in Dwayne Johnson’s upcoming spinoff, there’s no confirmation it will have anything to do with Eteon (even though that seems like a natural direction for the flick).
Both Ryan Reynolds and Kevin Hart are becoming frequent collaborators with Dwayne Johnson. Along with Hobbs & Shaw, Reynolds and Johnson starred together in Netflix‘s Red Notice, are confirmed to be reuniting for sequels, and The Rock made a cameo in 2021’s Free Guy. Meanwhile The Rock and Hart — the latter of whom played Air Marshall Dinkley in Hobbs & Shaw — have worked together on two Jumanji films, 2016’s Central Intelligence, and last year’s DC‘s League of Super-Pets.
