With The Fast & the Furious franchise seemingly speeding to an explosive finale, Dom and his crew are faced with their most dangerous foe yet in the penultimate Fast X with Jason Momoa's Dante. But the tires almost blew out beneath the film entirely when Justin Lin stepped away from the project. In his stead, Universal brought in veteran action director Louis Leterrier (The Incredible Hulk, Lupin) to steer the series to its finale.
Luckily, Leterrier is a huge fan of the franchise, and he leaped at the chance to contribute to the series. During an interview with CBR ahead of Fast X's theatrical debut on May 19, Louis Leterrier broke down what makes The Fast & the Furious franchise unique, crafting the perfectly gonzo character for Jason Momoa's Dante, and if he'd be interested in returning to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
CBR: You've directed so many different types of movies -- what excited you about stepping into The Fast & The Furious landscape?
Louis Leterrier: I mean, it's funny. Sure, I did The Transporter, but then I did magician movies, puppet shows, French TV shows, Marvel extravaganzas, and all that stuff. I love having fun. I fall in love with stuff. A constant of my career, I've experienced it in the beginning with Jason Statham, with whom I went to see [The Fast & the Furious] for the first time... when I started doing action movies, that was always the standard.
That was the bar you could not reach. It's not a question of budget. It's like a level of excellence. I was doing my little things, and then [The Fast & the Furious: Tokyo Drift] comes out. It's amazing. Fast & Furious, Fast Five, Fast & Furious 6 -- Fast Five especially. Fast & Furious 7 was so obviously emotional for the right reasons, The Fate of the Furious is so fun, Fast 9 -- they go to space, and I'm like, "Oh my god!" Then I received this phone call, and my jaw dropped.
From your perspective, what makes The Fast & The Furious franchise unique compared to the rest of the industry?
I mean, the franchise is unique [because of] the longevity [and] how character-driven it is, no pun intended. At the same time, how ludicrous some of the centerpieces are... Cinema with a capital C has been changed by the franchise many times before. With Fast X, frankly, when I received the phone call and they sent me the script, I was wowed by what I was reading. It's not exactly what the movie ended up being, but at least the structure of the movie was the same. It was a Fast and Furious movie spun on its head. You're starting with a happy time barbecue in the beginning, then literally taking this family apart.
That moved me on the page. It was a page-turner, and I choked up a little bit, especially at this ending. I started daydreaming and imagining what it could be. But it was still on the page, and it was a daunting task -- especially with no prep, with no runway. But with hindsight, this was a blessing because I never second-guessed myself or got overnoted by whomever. It was like, "We have a release date, this happened, [and] we trust you, Louis. Take us home." So I went and shot and shot and shot and prepped and worked and reworked some scenes. It was based on great work that had been done before, and I did my thing to make it what I think was right.
How did you and Jason Momoa create Dante's personality? He's such a big character. He's bombastic even compared to the rest of the film.
It's funny. I was focused on grounding it. But leading it back to Earth, we brought back an alien. Dante is this weird guy. Honestly, I sort of ran with Jason's take. He was on fire. He came into this franchise wanting to have fun. He was like, "I get to play the bad guy!" He hadn't played a bad guy in a long time, and he loves playing bad guys. We started playing together. We had no time to rehearse. So we're like, "Okay, let's just go and shoot and see what comes up." Then we tweaked and came up with fun one-liners and affectations and stuff like that. We had a blast and played with it.
We created the anti-Dom. That was what we wanted. We wanted to create Dante's yin to Dom's yang. We wanted [them to be] complimentary -- Dom has no hair, [and] Dante has nothing but hair. Dom wears nothing but black. Dante likes colors. Dom has the cross, [and] Dante has a weird devil belt on his chest. We had fun. It's a question of trust. He needed to trust me and my taste because it's almost like with a comedian. You will crash and burn 50% of the time. Jason was trying stuff, and stuff was too big or even too funny. Sometimes, we did a test where he was just hilarious. You were laughing too much, and the stakes would be weakened because the guy was hilarious. So we pulled him back, but we needed to go big to find the right level. Same thing with Vin. Vin was loving and embraced this interaction. It felt right to everyone.
I did want to mention The Incredible Hulk, which really helped set the stage for what the MCU has become. Looking back, how do you feel about the film? Would you ever consider returning to the MCU?
I love that movie. This was my big Hollywood break. I loved working with Marvel. Kevin Feige is a genius, and we just -- it was different, you know? The world was a different place. The MCU was first mentioned in Incredible Hulk. Tony Stark comes at the end of the movie and says, we're going to create the Avengers, and in a scene that was deleted, I put the Captain America shield into the ice. It was us, as fans, doing stuff -- not weighing the power of our actions and how we were changing cinema. I don't think Incredible Hulk changed it. Marvel changed cinema. But I think it's funny. It's very strange to be at the beginning of something and then to be here coming in at the end of another monument of cinema.
Do I want to go back? Absolutely. There's nothing that I would love more than going back to play with Marvel. It was an amazing time in my life. I love them. I really love them. Everyone involved at Marvel is amazing. The movies are amazing because they are real fans. Kevin lives and breathes, reads, and understands everything. It's just amazing. Because we're doing it with love -- and [it's] the same thing with this one. Nothing can last twenty-five years without love -- without love given to the franchise [and] given to the movies. We make them and then give them to the fans. I've met a lot of fans of the Furious franchise, and I also have met a lot of Marvel fans, and they're the same. There's some interconnectivity. Even if they are different, it's the same. These movies mean something more. It's very powerful as a puny human to be able to do things that enter the zeitgeist and change things.
Fast X opens in theaters on May 19.