Vin Diesel Says FURIOUS 7 Will Win Best Picture at The Oscars

In the movies, Vin Diesel almost always plays badasses, but the real guy is sort of goofy. My buddy Vince at FilmDrunk says he typifies the "existential buffoon," the kind of guys like Jaden Smith and Steven Seagal who spout philosophical nonsense but truly believe they're being deep. Diesel comes off sort of like a puppy - kind of dumb, but his heart is in the right place.

So when he tells Variety that he thinks Furious 7 will win Best Picture at next year's Oscars, it's one of those situations where you just sort of have to shake your head and smile.

“Universal is going to have the biggest movie in history with this movie,” Diesel said in a lengthy interview with Variety for this week’s cover story. “It will probably win best picture at the Oscars, unless the Oscars don’t want to be relevant ever.”

Diesel took a breath, before offering his prediction for a second time. “This will win best picture,” Diesel said. “There is nothing that will ever come close to the power of this thing.”

“We were successful in one-upping the action sequences, and adding an interesting dynamic to the world,” Diesel said. “But what the world won’t anticipate is how emotionally powerful the movie is. The head of the studio, Ron Meyer, often said when ‘Fast 5′ or ‘Fast 6′ came out, ‘If there was no number attached to these movies, they would be contenders for best picture.’ And when people see ‘Furious 7,’ they are going to agree.”

Look, I haven't seen Furious 7 yet, but anyone who knows anything about how the Oscars actually work knows that the movie has roughly a zero percent chance of winning Best Picture. Unless there's an entire subplot about a nerdy British guy who discovers something amazing, someone with a disability overcoming tremendous odds, or a studio executive character telling Dom and the rest of the gang that they should make a movie about their adventures (ooh, so meta!), it's not happening. But there have been some discussions recently about bumping the number of Best Picture nominees down to five again (it was kicked up to 10 after The Dark Knight failed to earn a nod), and this year's Neil Patrick Harris-hosted ceremony was a huge ratings disappointment, so maybe Furious 7 actually has about a 1% chance of taking home the gold after all.