Following the massive success of Fast & Furious 5, Universal has decided to allow director Justin Lin to shoot the next two instalments back to back...
Like many of us at Geek, I have a huge soft spot for the Fast franchise, and following this year’s excellent Fast & Furious 5, I’m excited to see where Justin Lin takes the series next, and how (or even if) he brings it to an end.
Lin backed down from the next instalment of The Terminator and a chance to work with Arnold Schwarzenegger to carry on working on the franchise that has made him such a sought-after director. Universal seem to be repaying Lin’s loyalty by allowing him to shoot the 6th and 7th instalments back to back.
This announcement follows last week’s news that Paramount and Hasbro are thinking about shooting Transformers 4 and 5 back to back, which prompted us to ask ourselves, Does shooting films back to back work? We argued that, while there are plenty of examples of the practice failing, there are also a lot of films where the tactic paid off.
I’d acknowledge that shooting back to back is always a risk, but given Lin’s continuing evolution as a director, combined with the fact that Fast & Furious 5 was a massive success at the box office and received mostly positive reviews, I'd argue it's a risk worth taking.
Fast & Furious 6 is currently pencilled in for a 24th May 2013 release, but I’d expect that to change given that the date was assigned prior to the announcement of the back to back shooting, so I’d be surprised if it arrives before the end of 2013.
More news on the Fast & Furious sequels as we get it
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