Fast Forever made Vin Diesel cry (and it will make you cry, too)

It's crazy to think that it's been 25 years since Dom (Vin Diesel) and his Corona-clinking familia roared onto screens in The Fast and the Furious. A pile-up of increasingly mind-boggling, gravity-defying stunts, even more insane explosions, and at least one trip to space later, the series has become a completely different beast from its LA street race roots; every movie has been faster, more furious, and jumped a dozen sharks en route to becoming the world's most gleefully silly, dumb-fun action franchise. Nonetheless, Diesel has long said that he wants to hit the brakes and set up a tonal gear change back to the ground level, but no less nitro-charged, LA street racing scene of the series' origins. “I just want to get back to real street racing, practical stunts... and a reunion of that beautiful brotherhood,” he wrote in an Instagram post back in November 2024. Well, we now know that Fast Forever, also expected to be the series' grand finale, will hit screens on 17 March 2028. As to whether he got his long-standing wish to go back to basics, we'll have to wait and see—but it certainly sounds like the actor is happy with the latest story draft. “I just read the Fast Forever script,” the actor wrote on Instagram a few weeks ago. “It is the best script I have read in decades. I am still crying.” The original Fast and the Furious was screened for its 25th anniversary in LA on Monday. There, Diesel offered Variety an update on Forever’s production timeline. “We start shooting in December, if I can make good on the request from the studio,” he said, though he stopped short of elaborating on just what that request is. “I'm in a good place, though. I had to go through four sets of writers, four years of development, to get something that I felt would be worthy of a finale.” Once again, he said that the script had him in tears. As to what shape the film will take, Diesel has historically offered some clues: in June last year, he implied that Paul Walker’s Brian O’Conner might return in some form, telling the crowd at FuelFest that ‘reuniting Dom and Brian’ was a condition for making the final film. That would suggest some sort of grim CGI resurrection, though nothing has been confirmed. There's also the small matter of resolving the batshit cliffhanger of the last entry, Fast X, which cut to black just as Dom and his son Little Brian looked to be blown to smithereens by Jason Momoa’s Dante at the bottom of an imploding dam. Seems like their last race is yet to be run, though. We'll find out in 2028—you bring the Corona, I've got the lime slices.