Timothy Olyphant Almost Played Dominic Toretto in THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS Franchise

Here's yet another of those classic "what if" scenarios that movie lovers often talk about. What the heck would the Fast and Furious franchise look like with Justified star Timothy Olyphant playing Dominic Toretto instead of Vin Diesel? I'm shocked that this was even up for discussion, but producer Neil Moritz revealed the piece of trivia on Bill Simmons' podcast (via Uproxx):

“I had been working with Paul Walker on another movie, Skulls, and I gave him the script [for The Fast and the Furious],” Moritz said. “Rob Cohen, who I had made The Rat Pack with, we gave him the script. The two of them liked the idea. And then we had to look for Dom Toretto. The studio said, ‘If you can get Timothy Olyphant to play that role we will greenlight the movie… The luckiest thing that ever happened to us is Tim Olyphant turned us down. He’s a great actor. In fact, I’m curious to see what that movie would have been.”

What a wild switch. I can't fathom how different the series might be with Timmy O in a lead role opposite Paul Walker.

But it seems as if Diesel somehow tricked Moritz into giving him the part through sheer force of will:

“I went and met him at Kate Mantilini [restaurant] and he wasn’t a star yet, but the great thing about Vin is he always believed he was a star,” recalls Moritz. “And I was going in there to think he’s coming to me to want the role and I’m the one there now having to convince him to do the role! Lucky for both of us that happened.”

I mean, that sounds exactly like something Dom would do, so I guess the right man ended up with the job.