{"id":684122,"date":"2026-07-10T11:37:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T11:37:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/684122\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T11:37:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T11:37:10","slug":"the-2002-movie-vin-diesel-turned-down-due-to-his-massive-ego","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/684122\/","title":{"rendered":"The 2002 movie Vin Diesel turned down due to his massive ego"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Vin<\/p>\n

Credit: Far Out \/ YouTube Still<\/p>\n

Fri 10 July 2026 3:30, UK <\/p>\n

Vin Diesel<\/a>\u2019s delusions of grandeur nearly cost him his most iconic role.<\/p>\n

Hollywood has never had a star quite like Diesel, whose dominance as a cultural force and box office champion has always been inexplicable. While it goes without saying that he is not a good actor<\/a>, he doesn\u2019t even possess the traits that are common among other action stars; he doesn\u2019t have the charisma of Dwayne Johnson, the actual martial arts background of Jason Statham, the self-awareness of John Cena, or the pathos of Gerard Butler. <\/p>\n

Diesel has forced his way into franchises and exasperated his collaborators, but it has somehow managed to turn out in his favour.<\/a> His big break came when the original The Fast and the Furious debuted in 2000 and performed surprisingly well, despite the fact that it was a complete ripoff of Point Break. While a sequel was quickly announced, he didn\u2019t sign on immediately with his co-star, Paul Walker. His interests lay in the development of xXx, a spy thriller that would contend with The Bourne Identity and Die Another Day in 2002.<\/p>\n

Diesel refused to budge and proclaimed that he wouldn\u2019t return to the franchise that made him into a star. \u201cIf somebody wanted to say my ego prevented the second one from being a real sequel, that\u2019s cool,\u201d he said<\/a>, \u201cI turned down $25million for my ego? If my ego is healthy enough to say, \u2018I\u2019m not going to do a rehash of the same film just because you want me to do it quickly\u2019. That\u2019s my ego! My ego is that big!\u201d<\/p>\n

It would ironically take another egocentric franchise non-commitment from Diesel to get him back in The Fast and the Furious, as he exited the sequel to xXx so that he could make The Chronicles of Riddick, a spinoff of the cult classic science fiction horror film Pitch Black. <\/p>\n

It was a flop, but Diesel managed to score a cameo appearance in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, the first instalment of the series directed by Justin Lin.<\/p>\n

Lin proved to be the breath of fresh air that the franchise needed in order to transform from a street-racing saga into an action franchise<\/a>. With 2009\u2019s Fast & Furious, the fourth film in the series, he brought both Diesel and Paul Walker back into the fold for what was essentially a legacy sequel to the 2000 original.<\/p>\n

Further reading: Cutting Room Floor<\/p>\n

That Lin was allowed to make four films in a row without facing any conflicts from Diesel feels miraculous today, given that the egocentric star has managed to bully and irritate every other filmmaker who has joined the series. After James Wan had to reconfigure Furious 7 into a tribute to the late Walker, Diesel\u2019s ego caused creative conflicts with The Fate of the Furious director F Gary Gray as well as Lin, when he returned to direct F9.<\/p>\n

The current status of the 11th film in the series, Fast Forever, is unknown<\/a>, given that Fast X ended on a cliffhanger that doesn\u2019t seem like it will be resolved anytime soon. Fast X made over $700m worldwide, but was still not financially successful because of its inflated budget. A recent sexual assault lawsuit against Diesel has only further muddied whether The Fast and the Furious series will ever get a proper ending.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE \"\"\/ <\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Far Out \/ YouTube Still Fri 10 July 2026 3:30, UK Vin Diesel\u2019s delusions of grandeur nearly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":684123,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[92249,214473,944,27787,96,80528,53390,2839,9581,56,54,55,12967],"class_list":["post-684122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-2000s","tag-214473","tag-action","tag-action-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-fast-and-furious","tag-james-wan","tag-movies","tag-race","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-vin-diesel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=684122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/684123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=684122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=684122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=684122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}