{"id":303980,"date":"2025-11-24T15:23:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T15:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/303980\/"},"modified":"2025-11-24T15:23:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T15:23:09","slug":"why-fast-x-director-justin-lin-left-production-days-into-filming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/303980\/","title":{"rendered":"Why ‘Fast X’ Director Justin Lin Left Production Days Into Filming"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gifted with the keys to one of the biggest franchises in the world and what would become reportedly the most expensive movie ever made, \u201cFast X<\/a>\u201d director Justin Lin<\/a> shocked the film<\/a> community when just days after the tenth movie in the \u201cFast & Furious\u201d franchise began production, he amicably left the project over reported \u201ccreative differences.\u201d<\/a> <\/p>\n

A new unathorized book, \u201cWelcome to the Family,\u201d documents the history of Universal\u2019s \u201cFast & Furious\u201d franchise and dives deeper into \u201cFast X\u2019s\u201d ballooning cast, an ever-changing script, a disagreement over a cliffhanger twist<\/a>, and a CGI-heavy climax that led Lin to ultimately walk away. Author Barry Hertz\u2019s book alleges it was Lin who chose to exit the project, not the studio who forced him out, leading him to be replaced with \u201cTransporter\u201d director Louis Leterrier<\/a> and for Lin to go back to his indie roots with his subsequent film, \u201cLast Days.\u201d<\/a> <\/p>\n

\"'Wicked'<\/a> \"Still<\/a> <\/p>\n

IndieWire shares an exclusive excerpt from Hertz\u2019s book below, chronicling the events that led up to Lin\u2019s departure. The book will be released by Grand Central\u00a0on Tuesday, November 25.<\/p>\n

Justin Lin had a plan. The COVID-19 pandemic was grinding on, and the filmmaker was patiently waiting for Universal to push \u201cF9\u201d out into the world. With too much time on his never-idle hands, he started to sketch out ideas for that film\u2019s grand follow-up, intended to be a two-part capper to the entire saga. Two or three days a week, he would hop on Zoom calls with screenwriter Alfredo Botello, producer Jeff \u201cKirsch\u201d Kirschenbaum, and Universal exec Jay Polidoro to hash out the big themes of what would become \u201cFast X.\u201d The meetings were initially slow going, but the team ended up zeroing in on a few key ideas, including the notion of consequences. What if Dom and his crew were forced to reckon with the actions of their globally destructive missions \u2014 all the wreckage, both physical and emotional, they had left in their wake?<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the big ideas that we explored was that the world would put the family on trial in a way \u2014 that some small bit of collateral damage would come back to haunt them,\u201d says Botello. \u201cThere was going to be some subversion. Plus, Dom\u2019s older, he\u2019s a dad. What does it mean when the past catches up with you, and now maybe your kid\u2019s life is on the line? What does that do to you as a badass, this thief-slash-spy-slash-swashbuckler?\u201d<\/p>\n

Slowly, the conversation developed into revisiting the franchise\u2019s biggest and still greatest achievement: \u201cFast Five.\u201d Opening with a flashback to the crew\u2019s Rio de Janeiro vault heist, \u201cFast X\u201d would introduce its new antagonist by looking at Dom and Brian\u2019s big score from the perspective of a heretofore unknown player: Dante Reyes, the sociopathic son of slain Brazilian drug lord Hernan. After biding his time for years, Dante would frame Dom and his crew as global terrorists, making them publicly suffer for their past sins\u2014while holding the life of Little Brian over Dom\u2019s head.<\/p>\n

\u201cJustin has this general outlook on life, which is that the incidental person in the room is the one who you really have to worry about \u2014 you don\u2019t know them yet, but they might one day become your biggest nemesis or your biggest ally,\u201d says Botello. \u201cIn this case, it was coming back to the big death in \u2018Fast Five\u2019 and how that comes back to bite you in the ass. That bad guy is gone, but oh, wait, he has a kid. And now Dom has a kid, too.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"FAST\u2018Fast X\u2019\u00a9Universal\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/p>\n

As the pandemic stretched on, Botello left to work on his own projects, while \u201cF9\u201d cowriter Daniel Casey also became preoccupied, selling a supernatural Western script to J.J. Abrams\u2019s company. While longtime Fast screenwriter Chris Morgan would ultimately receive an executive-producer credit on \u201cFast X,\u201d Lin wanted to go his own way this time and enlisted writer Dan Mazeau, who was coming off the underrated Millie Bobby Brown fantasy \u201cDamsel,\u201d which was produced by Kirsch and Joe Roth. As \u201cFast X\u2019s\u201d storyline evolved, bringing Jakob back as a badass uncle for Little B, adding both a new antagonist (Alan Ritchson\u2019s Aimes) and a new ally (Brie Larson\u2019s Tess) inside Mr. Nobody\u2019s secret government agency, Lin turned to his 24\/7 brain trust at Perfect Storm to dream up the extravagant set pieces and their exotic international locales. As usual, there were more gonzo ideas pitched than could ever be feasibly executed.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne sequence that we\u2019ve been trying to fit into every one of the \u2018Fast\u2019 movies was to have a giant digging or boring drill that the crew is chasing \u2014 it\u2019s digging into a city\u2019s underground, then coming back up. At one point, that was going to be the big finale for ten,\u201d recalls associate producer Josh Henson, who stayed on \u201cFast X\u201d during the earliest stages of preproduction until he left to join Taylor Sheridan\u2019s production company (\u201cYellowstone,\u201d \u201cMayor of Kingstown\u201d). \u201cI also had this idea I\u2019d been pitching for years called the \u2018shitty car sequence\u2019 \u2014 I want to see Dom and the crew driving beat-up Pintos and Toyota Camrys and using those to pull off something amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

While a few elements of the \u201cFast X\u201d script stayed consistent throughout development \u2014 including the notion of a cliffhanger ending \u2014 everything else was in a constant, disorienting state of flux, even more so than usual. At one point, the script prominently featured Hobbs, with the story climaxing in the destruction of Rio. There was also a gigantic \u201cbattle royale\u201d in which Hobbs and Shaw faced off against Dom and Jakob. There were discussions about bringing back the \u201cTokyo Drift\u201d boys. Vietnam was once in play as a location. And most outrageously, at one point Dante assembles what an early script refers to as \u201cour Legion of Doom,\u201d in which Cole Hauser\u2019s Carter Verone (\u201c2 Fast\u201d), Laz Alonso\u2019s Fenix (\u201cFast 4\u201d), Joe Taslim\u2019s Jah (\u201cFast 6), Ronda Rousey\u2019s Kara (\u201cFurious 7\u2033), and various other Toretto enemies return to seek collective revenge\u201d: \u201cThat\u2019s the best thing about you, Dom,\u201d Dante says in the abandoned draft. \u201cOnly thing you got more of than family \u2014 is enemies.\u201d In and out, up and down \u2014 opinions on and changes to the script came from every direction.<\/p>\n

All the while, casting plowed ahead as Universal was once again dead set on meeting an ambitious release date: spring 2023. But the high-wattage ensemble kept growing until it ballooned to nearly unsustainable levels. Somehow, the story had to incorporate not only the regular Toretto crew but also such franchise latecomers as Jakob, Cipher, Deckard and Queenie Shaw, Little Nobody, Stasiuk, and more. And then there were the new players, starting with Jason Momoa as Dante, Daniela Melchior as the younger sister of Dom\u2019s long-lost Rio love Elena (making her Little B\u2019s aunt), plus Larson and Ritchson as two dueling forces in Mr. Nobody\u2019s black-ops agency. There were now more marquee-level names than ever before, each coming with their own deals, demands, and multiplex-sized egos. Before a single frame of footage was shot, far more than $100 million had been spent on signing all the above-the-line talent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey say yes to all these actors, and they all come with their own assistants and their own flights and their own trailers, and it\u2019s this insane amount of money,\u201d recalls production designer Jan Roelfs, returning to \u201cF9\u201d after working with Lin on \u201cF6.\u201d \u201cBut the biggest stars are also often the easiest to work with. Charlize Theron, she\u2019s amazing. She\u2019s like Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Meryl Streep: They just show up and work. They come on time, they\u2019re ready, they know their lines. Other people, they get there, and they don\u2019t know what they want. \u2018Okay, let\u2019s discuss it for the next five hours in your trailer.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Behind the scenes, Lin was busy assembling his usual behind-the-scenes all-stars: cinematographer Stephen F. Windon; Spiro Razatos and the Gill brothers, Jack and Andy, on second unit; editors Dylan Highsmith and Kelly Matsumoto; previz supervisor Alex Vegh; costume designer Sanja Milkovic Hays; VFX supervisor Peter Chiang. Almost everyone was back, eager to bring Lin\u2019s vision to life and give the Fast-verse the kick-ass penultimate chapter that it so richly deserved.<\/p>\n

\u201cJustin said to me that he wanted all of the threads of the pictures he directed to tie together and build to a climax \u2014 he was so familiar with the character arcs that it made sense that he was the person doing this, to culminate it all,\u201d recalls Chiang. \u201cHe\u2019s always thinking ahead.\u201d Principal photography kicked off in April 2022 at Leavesden Studios just outside London, with the production taking over seven massive soundstages. First up, Lin tackled two fight scenes involving Theron \u2014 one in which her villainous terrorist Cipher faces off against Momoa\u2019s Dante and an army of henchmen, another in which she goes toe to toe with Rodriguez\u2019s Letty. Timing was tight and the pressure was on, as Theron only had a limited window in her schedule before she had to go to film another project. Everything seemed to be going smoothly enough. Then, on Friday, April 22, Diesel posted a nineteen-second Instagram video featuring himself sidling up to Lin.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you think, Justin?\u201d Diesel says to the camera, mugging behind his trademark dark shades.<\/p>\n

\u201cWeek one, just finished week one,\u201d Lin replies a little too flatly. <\/p>\n

\u201cHow does it feel?\u201d Diesel implores.<\/p>\n

\u201cFeels like the beginning of an epic, uh, ending.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cIs it fair to say this will be the best one?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my heart\u2026yes,\u201d Lin says, all but shrugging his shoulders.<\/p>\n

Immediately after the clip went online, fans pointed out that the footage resembled a darkly comic hostage video: Lin\u2019s eyes appeared to be screaming to the camera, \u201cHelp!\u201d while the oblivious Diesel kept rolling. Yet according to those on set, Lin spent his first three days of shooting in high spirits.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe shot on a Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, and it was all Charlize and Jason. I remember that Friday night, I saw Justin and he was the happiest I\u2019d ever seen. He was delighted with the way it was going\u2014he loved the chemistry between Charlize and Jason,\u201d recalls cinematographer Windon. \u201cAnd then, whatever happened, it happened over that weekend. And I never saw him after that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Fast\u2018Fast X\u2019\u00a9Universal\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, April 26, Lin shocked the \u201cFast\u201d family \u2014 and the global film industry at large \u2014 by announcing that he was leaving the movie. In an anodyne statement released via \u201cFast\u2019s\u201d official social media channels, he wrote:<\/p>\n

With the support of Universal, I have made the difficult decision to step back as director of \u201cFAST X,\u201d while remaining with the project as a producer. Over 10 years and five films, we have been able to shoot the best actors, the best stunts, and the best damn car chases. On a personal note, as the child of Asian immigrants, I am proud of helping to build the most diverse franchise in movie history. I will forever be grateful to the amazing cast, crew and studio for their support, and for welcoming me into the \u201cFAST\u201d family.<\/p>\n

Immediately, the set plunged into a deeply confusing swirl of juicy gossip and high anxiety. \u201cI spoke to him on the phone the day he left the movie \u2014 he called me and Vincent Lascoumes, his assistant director\u2014 and he just kept saying that his health was more important than the movie,\u201d says Windon. \u201cSomething obviously had been cooking. On the Friday night before, he was so happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to several high-level sources in the production, Lin had hit his breaking point over the steadily increasing creative tensions with Diesel, as well as difficulties with the star\u2019s sister\/producer, Samantha Vincent, who often acted as Diesel\u2019s emissary. A key source of discord centered around the script and its ending. While a cliffhanger was always part of the \u201cFast X\u201d plan, several drafts of the screenplay also hinged on a jaw-dropping twist in which Dante is revealed to be the true father of Little Brian. Some members of the film\u2019s team felt that the late-game turn was the perfect, if deeply dark, way for Dom to reckon with the concept he held most dear: family. The proud patriarch of the \u201cFast\u201d clan would have to put his life on the line for a child who wasn\u2019t biologically his own \u2014 who was in fact the offspring of his most feared nemesis. Others, including Diesel, felt differently.<\/p>\n

Universal was said to be extremely hands on during the entire process, and reportedly also not keen on Lin\u2019s vision for the final action set-piece, an especially over-the-top sequence that involved Dante using a giant excavator-like machine to wreak havoc \u2014 a VFX-heavy climax that would drive up the cost of a project whose production budget was already well north of $300 million and climbing, making \u201cFast X\u201d one of the most expensive movies ever made.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really the ending that needed work \u2014 it\u2019s difficult to describe, but this machine eats things\u2026the bad guy goes down, gets into this machine, comes out and starts eating cars, and it\u2019s like a \u2018Transformers\u2019 movie. It was totally out of context with the movie, I thought,\u201d says Alexander Witt, a veteran second-unit director and cinematographer (\u201cGladiator,\u201d \u201cCasino Royale,\u201d \u201cSkyfall\u201d) who was now back in the \u201cFast\u201d franchise after overseeing \u201cFast Five\u2019s\u201d train heist. \u201cI thought it was a little too Marvel, and the problem was it would have been all CG. Although we ended up with all CG in the end. From the moment that Dom jumps over the dam [in the final film], it\u2019s all CG.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"FAST\u2018Fast X\u2019 director Louis Leterrier on set\u00a9Universal\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/p>\n

After a heated closed-door meeting on Saturday, April 23, Lin reached his limit, threw up his hands, and quit. His departure was unprecedented. While Hollywood history is littered with movies that lost their directors midway through shooting \u2014 think of Bryan Singer leaving \u201cBohemian Rhapsody,\u201d Phil Lord and Christopher Miller exiting the Han Solo movie, or way back to when George Cukor was swept off \u201cGone with the Wind\u201d \u2014 those were all cases in which the studio and producers fired the filmmakers. Here, it was the director who was saying enough is enough.<\/p>\n

For the \u201cFast X\u201d crew, many of whom had worked with Lin since \u201cTokyo Drift,\u201d it was a devastating blow. \u201cObviously, it was a big shock. I was nervous, because I had such a great rapport with Justin and I was like \u2018Well, this has nowhere to go but down,\u2019\u201d recalls Razatos, whose second unit was just about to start shooting the film\u2019s opening chase sequence in Italy.<\/p>\n

But the crew had to balance their emotional unease with practical concerns. Dozens of key people had already spent months in preproduction getting the film\u2019s complex machinery in motion, and there were hundreds more who had upended their lives for the promise of several months\u2019 worth of work, across several different countries. It was the nerve-wracking uncertainty of \u201cFurious 7\u201d post Paul Walker all over again \u2014 although this time, few thought that Universal was going to shut the film down completely. The studio desperately needed \u201cFast X\u201d to roll. Yet surely whoever stepped in would need a decent amount of time to readjust and recalibrate, right? \u201cWe heard so many different names of directors who were going to come in, and some of them you\u2019re going \u2018Oh, God, that\u2019s a really famous director, and if he comes in, he\u2019s going to change everything,\u2019\u201d recalls stunt coordinator Jack Gill. \u201c\u2018Is our entire crew going to be out of work?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Some key department heads thought about walking away out of loyalty to Lin. Yet after the news broke, the director reached out to many of his collaborators and encouraged them to stay. \u201cI asked Justin, \u2018Should I go?\u2019 He was the one who hired me. But I was also responsible for all my team, who had blocked out six months of time to be free,\u201d says supervising stunt coordinator and splinter-unit director Olivier Schneider, who joined \u201cFast X\u201d after first working with Lin on \u201cFast 6.\u201d \u201cJustin said definitely stay: \u2018It\u2019s my decision. I want what\u2019s best for the franchise.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

So everyone stayed put \u2014 except for Vegh, the director\u2019s trusted head of previz. \u201cIt was kind of heartbreaking because a lot of effort went into it,\u201d says Vegh, who likened the situation to an experience that\u2019s common in previz work: you spend forever designing a sequence that is ultimately cut from the final film. \u201cIt\u2019s hard, but you have to say, \u2018Fuck that sequence.\u2019 Because what you work on next, you\u2019re going to crush that thing instead. It was the same thing with \u201cFast 10.\u201d Yeah, it was heartbreaking. But also, this is a new chapter. I\u2019m not going to say, \u2018Fuck that\u2019 to the \u201cFast\u201d franchise, because that\u2019s not how I feel. It\u2019s more like \u2018All right, let\u2019s see what we can do better. Let\u2019s see what\u2019s new on the horizon.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Excerpted from \u201cWELCOME TO THE FAMILY: The Explosive Story Behind Fast & Furious, the Blockbusters that Supercharged the World.\u201d Copyright 2025 by Barry Hertz. Reprinted with permission of Grand Central Publishing. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gifted with the keys to one of the biggest franchises in the world and what would become reportedly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303981,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[49,48,75,136440,96403,1554,93497,337,71038],"class_list":{"0":"post-303980","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-fast-x","12":"tag-fast-and-furious","13":"tag-film","14":"tag-justin-lin","15":"tag-movies","16":"tag-vin-diesel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303980\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}