Vin Diesel Says FAST FOREVER Could Start Shooting in December After Four Years of Script Development

Getting Dominic Toretto across the finish line has apparently been more complicated than some of the missions he’s survived.

Vin Diesel has spent years trying to get Fast Forever into shape, and according to the actor, the upcoming finale went through four different sets of writers during four years of development before he finally read a screenplay that felt worthy of ending the Fast & Furious saga.

Now, after all those rewrites and all that waiting, cameras could finally start rolling this winter. Diesel shared the update during a 25th-anniversary screening of The Fast and the Furious, where he explained that principal photography is currently being targeted for December.

However, there are still some studio matters that need to fall into place before production officially gets underway. he expained:

“We start shooting in December, if I can make good on the request from the studio. I’m in a good place, though. I had to go through four sets of writers, four years of development, to get to something that I felt would be worthy of a finale. And when I read the script a couple of weeks ago, [I cried].”

Diesel has played Dominic Toretto since 2001, and Fast Forever is supposed to bring an end to a massive chapter of his career while wrapping up a franchise that has grown far beyond the street-racing movie that started everything.

There’s also an enormous amount of money involved. The Fast & Furious franchise has earned more than $7.3 billion worldwide, making it Universal’s most profitable franchise. With that kind of business riding on the finale, it makes sense that everyone involved wants to get the movie right rather than rush a script into production just to hit a release date.

For Diesel, though, this clearly goes beyond the financial side of things. Before the anniversary screening of The Fast and the Furious began, he talked more about finally reading the Fast Forever screenplay and how strongly the ending affected him.

“By the end of the script that we crafted and worked so hard to make right for you after four years, I was crying. I couldn’t hold it back, and I had to tell everyone. And my sister said, ‘No more crying, bro.’ So I just want to say that sometimes, even the toughest guys in the world need to cry.”

Considering how much the Fast & Furious movies have built themselves around family, loyalty, loss, and legacy, it isn’t difficult to imagine Fast Forever leaning hard into those elements for its conclusion. If this really is the end of Dominic Toretto’s story, there are more than two decades of characters and history for the filmmakers to pull from.

Of course, the big question is whether Fast Forever will actually make it into production this December. Diesel sounds confident, but his comment about making good on the studio’s request suggests there are still pieces that need to come together before Universal sends Dom and his crew roaring back onto the road.

If this movie actually gets made, I really hope the finished film was worth the fight Diesel put up to make it happen. It’s been a long road to finding the right ending. Whatever you think of where the Fast & Furious franchise has gone over the years, Diesel obviously cares about how Dominic Toretto's story concludes.

After cars jumping between skyscrapers, submarines chasing sports cars, trips into space, and enough impossible stunts to make physics file for early retirement, it would be nice to see the franchise land its finale where it matters most: with its characters.

And yes, probably with one final barbecue.