{"id":552004,"date":"2026-03-20T03:58:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T03:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/552004\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T03:58:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T03:58:08","slug":"fast-forever-taps-michael-lesslie-screenwriter-of-hunger-games-prequels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/552004\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Fast Forever’ Taps Michael Lesslie, Screenwriter of ‘Hunger Games’ Prequels"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tWelcome to the \u201cFast Family,\u201d Michael Lesslie<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Thursday, \u201cFast and Furious<\/a>\u201d star and producer Vin Diesel announced that Lesslie will write the script for Universal\u2019s \u201cFast Forever<\/a>,\u201d mapping out Dominic Toretto and his crew\u2019s final quarter-mile. <\/p>\n

\n\tDiesel shared the news on Instagram, posting a black-and-white photo of himself meeting with Lesslie to discuss the script for the long-anticipated franchise finale, dated for theatrical release on March 17, 2028.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c25 years. Eight directors. Countless writers, crew members, performers, each one giving something real to a saga that has outlasted trends, cynics, and time itself,\u201d Diesel began his caption. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t happen by accident\u2026 It happens because people show up and pour themselves into something bigger than any one individual.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThat conversation, Diesel explained, helped him recapture the feeling of \u201ca story with something real beating inside it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere is a particular weight that comes with delivering a finale. A responsibility you feel in your chest, to everyone who gave something to get here, to the audience that stayed,\u201d Diesel continued. \u201cYou don\u2019t take that lightly. You take it as fuel. And when you find out you\u2019re going back to Los Angeles\u2026 back to the streets where it all began, something clicks into place. The city that made the first film feel alive, still here, still holding. Coming home to close it out right. That\u2019s not logistics. That\u2019s a gift.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs Diesel noted, the stakes are indeed high. Over the past 25 years, the \u201cFast & Furious\u201d movies have grossed a total of $7.3 billion, making it Universal\u2019s most profitable and longest-running franchise (2015\u2019s \u201cFurious 7\u2033 is the top-grossing installment with $1.5 billion worldwide; 2023\u2019s \u201cFast X\u201d grossed $704 million). By the time \u201cFast Forever\u201d debuts, fans will have endured a five-year wait to find out what happened after the explosive last minutes of \u201cFast X,\u201d marking the longest stretch between installments since the franchise began.<\/p>\n

\n\tSources say Lesslie is rewriting a script previously written by Aaron Rabin and Zach Dean. The screenwriter most recently penned \u201cThe Hunger Games\u201d prequels \u201cThe Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes\u201d and \u201cSunrise on the Reaping,\u201d as well as \u201cNow You See Me: Now You Don\u2019t\u201d and Riz Ahmed\u2019s contemporary \u201cHamlet.\u201d Lesslie has also been in talks to write Marvel\u2019s next X-Men movie.<\/p>\n

\n\tLesslie is represented by CAA, Untitled, Casarotto and attorney Jim Gilio at Sloan Offer. Universal had no comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welcome to the \u201cFast Family,\u201d Michael Lesslie. On Thursday, \u201cFast and Furious\u201d star and producer Vin Diesel announced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":552005,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,63,134,273026,122399,273027,344],"class_list":["post-552004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-fast-forever","tag-fast-and-furious","tag-michael-lesslie","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}