Many Hollywood action franchises begin with an idea that really should only sustain one movie and a budget that barely touches the sides of some huge summer blockbusters. From there, a big box office win can spark a studio into quickly investing a lot more money into turning the idea into a lucrative franchise. One movie saga began in exactly this way in 2001, as a gritty crime thriller about a cop investigating a street racing gang with the suspicion they are behind a series of truck hijackings. Somehow, that movie evolved into a franchise that ended up being about putting the biggest Mission: Impossible style stunts on no matter how ridiculous the story that got them there. Of course, we are talking about Vin Diesel’s The Fast and the Furious and its many sequels, most of which are about to leave Netflix.
When it was released in 2001, The Fast and the Furious saw Paul Walker’s cop Brian O’Connor infiltrate the street-racing crew of Dominic Toretto, played by Diesel, only to end up joining them and becoming part of the team in the next movies. The saga was always about Dom and his “family,” but the story quickly became more fractured as the third movie released, Tokyo Drift, was linked to the events of Fast & Furious 6, which was released seven years later. Alongside the main franchise, spin-off movie Hobbs and Shaw saw Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham’s characters getting their own side movie in another success story, before things went really crazy and started involving nuclear submarines and even spaceships. By 2023’s Fast X, the astronomical budget of the movie gave it very little chance of turning a profit and almost derailed the 11th and final movie, which is only just about to get production up and running.
The Fast & Furious Could Return to Its Roots for Its Final Act
Despite the Fast & Furious franchise jumping the shark and almost paying the ultimate price with the indefinite delay of Fast Forever, the next movie is definitely going ahead. The question is exactly what form the last entry will take, with Vin Diesel having made it very clear that he just wants to “make a movie about street racing,” something that he may have had not choice in with huge cuts to the franchise’s budget being reported after the release of Fast X. It is impossible to deny that the franchise has seen its profits dwindling since the huge $1.5 billion outlier success of Furious 7, which gave the studio the false belief that audiences would continue to turn out for subsequent movies in the same way. Check out the Fast & Furious‘ rise and fall below.
| Film Title | Release Year | Estimated Budget | Domestic Box Office | Worldwide Box Office |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Fast and the Furious | 2001 | $38M | $149.6M | $211.5M |
| 2 Fast 2 Furious | 2003 | $76M | $127.1M | $236.4M |
| The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift | 2006 | $85M | $62.6M | $157.8M |
| Fast & Furious | 2009 | $85M | $155.1M | $359.3M |
| Fast Five | 2011 | $125M | $210.0M | $630.0M |
| Fast & Furious 6 | 2013 | $160M | $238.7M | $789.3M |
| Furious 7 | 2015 | $190M | $353.0M | $1.510B |
| The Fate of the Furious | 2017 | $250M | $225.8M | $1.189B |
| Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw | 2019 | $200M | $173.9M | $760.7M |
| F9: The Fast Saga | 2021 | $200M | $173.0M | $719.4M |
| Fast X | 2023 | $340M | $146.1M | $714.4M |
Before Fast Forever finally rolls out of the garage, fans have just enough time to catch most of the previous movies before they leave Netflix on November 1. Those wanting to burn their way through the entire saga will need to make a detour for a few entries as The Fate of the Furious, F9, and Fast X are currently spread across other platforms like HBO Max and Prime Video. Some would argue that the continuity of the later movies is not that important thanks to the story becoming more about spectacle than substance, and that means Netflix’s collection should be more than enough rubber-burning action to keep everyone happy.