Dwayne Johnson's Role in FAST FIVE Was Originally Written For Tommy Lee Jones
Vin Diesel went live on Facebook this past Friday and revealed that the Guardians are going to be a part of Avengers: Infinity War, but he also revealed an interesting little piece of trivia about the Fast & Furious franchise.
First up, you probably know Diesel was reportedly beefing with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson over some ego-driven nonsense on the set of Fast 8. So when Diesel praised his fans for being loyal to him in that live video, I took it as a veiled dig at Johnson:
"Loyalty is not the common word out here in Hollywood most of the time. Sometimes I wonder if it even exists."
Hmm.
But on to the trivia. Diesel revealed that the role of Johnson's Luke Hobbs was originally meant for an entirely different actor:
"When the Letty character was killed in the fourth one...because of all of you, because of the petitions, and because of all of those beautiful Dom/Letty videos you used to make...we were able to get the studio to bring her character back, and the franchise has been better because of it. Back in the fifth film when I was asking who should I work with, the reason why we brought Dwayne Johnson into Fast Five was because of you. There was a girl named Jan Kelly who said, 'I would love to see you guys work together on screen.' So we gave a role that was originally written to Tommy Lee Jones, but we gave it to Dwayne. And he shined in it."
Obviously, Jones' version of Luke Hobbs wouldn't have been nearly as physical as Johnson's eventual take on the character. It seems like he would have basically been reprising his role from The Fugitive and U.S. Marshals, which is basically the kind of archetype that Kurt Russell has in the franchise now.
Because of all of the recent drama, I can't help but think this video is a passive aggressive tactic meant to get under Johnson's skin a little bit. The subtext is basically Diesel saying, "We could have given this to someone else, but we went out of our way to give this part to The Rock, and look at how he's repaid us." They better get their sh*t together and make up, because I don't want this crap to have a negative effect on one of my favorite on-going film franchises.
Fast 8 hits theaters on April 14, 2017.
Via: /Film