10 Things You Didn’t Know About The Fast and the Furious
If there is one movie franchise that has surprised me the most it has to be The Fast and the Furious. When I saw the original back in 2001 I really enjoyed the film with its plentiful car chases and action. The actors were perfectly cast and you can either thank or blame the movie for making Vin Diesel a star. However, after a couple of decent but underwhelming sequels I thought the franchise was dead. Boy, was I wrong (and glad to be wrong.) The Fast and the Furious franchise, besides changing the name in almost every sequel, has grossed over a billion dollars becoming Universal’s biggest franchise of all time and there is no signs of slowing down. Universal Studios has been around for over hundred years so that is saying something. Currently, Furious 7 is the seconding highest worldwide grossing Universal film and the sixth overall highest grossing film of all time. I recently re-watched the original The Fast and the Furious for the umptheenth, but this time with the commentary by director Rob Cohen to learn some things that I didn’t know and summarily relay them to you with the assumption that you did not know them either.
1.You may know that there is a 1955 Roger Corman film titled The Fast and the Furious (if not BONUS THING!), but how about this for horse trading. The producers of the 2001 film traded some stock footage to Roger Corman for the use of the title.
2. The opening hijacking scene was basically stolen (or hijacked if you will) from John Ford’s Stagecoach with Honda Civics taking the place of horses and a semi taking the place of the stagecoach. See, they didn’t have Civics in the Old West.
3. Stagecoach isn’t the only film that influenced the action. Cohen admits the plot is very similar, almost to the point of stealing, to Point Break and Donnie Brasco. Two very fine films in Cohen’s mind.
4. All the actors took driving lessons to learn to handle the cars. That is nothing unique for movies, but stars Jordana Brewster and Michelle Rodriguez did not even have driver’s licenses before they started.
5. Speaking of driving, Cohen had real life street racers drive their own cars instead of stunt drivers. This initially worried stunt coordinator Mic Rogers but after seeing how well they drove their own cars it worked very well. There were zero fender benders on set.
6. Mic Rogers invented a new piece of equipment for filming the car scenes, affectionately titled the Mic Rig. It is basically a van with an extended chassis that an on film car can sit in allowing the actor to act and the stunt driver to drive. This keeps the actor safe but gives the appearance of actual driving and more realism.
7. Vin Diesel was so into a fight scene that he elbowed a stuntman too hard and broke his nose. That wasn’t the only injury as another stuntman broke his leg during a motorcycle chase.
8. The police procedural scenes are Cohen’s least favorite because they take away from the action. They only serve the purpose they are needed for which is to further the plot. Not that he though they were done poorly, Cohen had experience with police procedurals, directing episodes of Miami Vice, Private Eye, and Hooperman.
9. The house that the police use is the house that Eddie Fisher built for his then wife Elizabeth Taylor and it is a complete circle surrounding a pool in the middle.
10. Both director Rob Cohen and producer Neal Moritz have cameos. Cohen as a pizza delivery man and Moritz as a jerk in a Ferrari.
This 10 Things you Didn’t Know About is in honor and dedicated to one we lost too soon, Brian O’Conner. RIP, Paul Walker.
