Fast & Furious 10 Problems Destroy The Franchise's Perfect Hype Machine

With the departure of director Justin Lin, as well as various other behind-the-scenes controversies, the hype for Fast & Furious 10 has been drained.

Fast X recently entered production, but the 10th entry in the Fast & Furious franchise is already being plagued by a plethora of issues that are killing its hype. This wouldn’t be the first time the Fast & Furious movies came with baggage weighing them down — most infamously is Vin Diesel and The Rock’s feud. Between the apparent behind-the-scenes drama and various creative differences coming to light, it is unclear how Fast & Furious 10 will turn out.

The movie is intended to be the first installment of a two-part finale to the mainline Fast Saga, and this already creates a lot of pressure for the cast and crew to deliver. Fast & Furious 10 is also coming off of one of the wildest entries in the franchise to date, that being the 2021 sequel F9, which brought back Fast & Furious franchise veteran Justin Lin as director and set the series on a winning path towards its inevitable conclusion. Lin was set to direct the final two entries of the series, including Fast & Furious 10, but recent developments have put a strain on what should be an exciting beginning to the end of the Fast & Furious series.

Justin Lin stepped back from the director’s chair only days into filming Fast & Furious 10. This came as a shock, especially when one of the reasons for Lin’s departure involved clashes with Fast & Furious franchise lead Vin Diesel. Lin stated that Diesel has been quite difficult to work with, often arriving on set late and not remembering his lines. The director’s departure is unfortunate for a number of reasons, the biggest being that he knows this franchise better than any other filmmaker, having worked on five of the previous installments. His signature style has been an integral part of getting the franchise to the heights of critical acclaim and box office success that it has reached, so seeing him go already casts a dark cloud over the production of the penultimate film.

Aside from the departure of Justin Lin as director of Fast X, it appears there have been a lot of creative differences, even before his exit. Lin’s script for Fast & Furious 10 had been completed when Universal Pictures expressed the desire to change his final product, already causing a shift between Lin and the studio. Furthermore, they had sent in another writer to do touch-ups on the script which Lin clearly did not appreciate, adding to the director’s reasons for exiting the project.

With director Louis Leterrier now officially recruited by Universal to replace Lin, filming on the 10th Fast & Furious movie has resumed, and it’s still set to release in May of 2023 as originally planned. With the additions of Oscar-winning actress Brie Larson and Aquaman star Jason Momoa to the franchise with this installment, Fast X still has some positive aspects going for it and could still pull out a satisfying first half to the series’ hopefully epic conclusion. But with all of the problems the latest Fast & Furious movie is already facing, it’s going to be an uphill battle when this should be an exciting next step for the series.