This article is about the film franchise. For the franchise's first film, see. For the 2009 Operation Fast and Furious investigation in the United States, see. Moritz, and Michael Fottrell April 29, 2011 2011-04-29 May 24, 2013 2013-05-24 Neal H. Moritz, Vin Diesel and April 3, 2015 2015-04-03 Neal H. Moritz, Vin Diesel and Michael Fottrell April 14, 2017 2017-04-14 Neal H. Moritz, Vin Diesel, Michael Fottrell and Chris Morgan August 2, 2019 2019-08-02 Neal H. Moritz and Hiram Garcia Filming Untitled ninth film April 10, 2020 2020-04-10 Justin Lin Chris Morgan and Daniel Casey Neal H. He said his dream project would be a mash-up of and. So the filmmakers brought him a article they'd found about undercover street racing in New York City. The story was pitched as a remake of set in the world of underground street racing in Los Angeles and Walker's character playing a cop who infiltrates the illegal racing world. Walker signed on immediately but the producers decided to give him a strong supporting co-star and were impressed with after watching. The film was titled and it exceeded box office expectations which led in developing a sequel with Paul Walker again as the lead. However, they had trouble re-signing Vin Diesel for the sequel as his star power had grown and he and director Rob Cohen left the series to develop the film. For the third movie,Paul Walker left the franchise citing politics, studio interference and regime decision. Universal then approached Vin Fast and furious 7 but he was busy with the other movies. Since neither of the stars agreed to appear in the movie, Universal rebooted the franchise with new characters, a new director, Justin Lin, moving the series to Tokyo and shifting away from the racing element to the subculture. While the movie was in post-production, Vin Diesel agreed to do a cameo in order for his production company to acquire rights to the Riddick character from Pitch Black. The third movie was the least financially successful of the franchise but the Vin Diesel cameo received a very positive reaction from the audience. The studio told Diesel that it planned to use his cameo as a way to relaunch the Dominic storyline. Vin Diesel, Universal and Justin Lin tracked down all the original co-stars of the first movie including Paul Walker,and to convince them to return to the franchise. Paul Walker was initially reluctant to rejoin the franchise after six years but Vin Diesel assured him that this will be the first true sequel. The popular character of Han was also brought back and given his death in the third movie, the entire timeline of the franchise was altered so that he can be included in further sequels. The fourth movie, was a financial success and Universal wanted to continue with further sequels, and was developed which shifted the genre away from car racing and into a heist movie, added to the cast and changed the location to Brazil. Fast Five was supposed to wrap up the franchise but given its strong box office performance and high critical praise with some calling it the best movie in the franchise, Universal proceeded to develop the sixth movie. Universal lacked a major event movie for the following summer and quickly rushed into production for a release in Summer 2014. Furious 7 is seen as a transitional movie which shifts the franchise from a heist to a spy action movie genre. Furious 7 was the most successful film in the franchise and producers decided to retire fast and furious 7 Paul Walker character instead of killing him off. However, the toll of directing the movie with additional re-shoots forced Director James Wan not to return to the franchise. Originally the ninth movie was supposed to be released April 2019 and followed by the tenth movie in April 2021. However, Universal proceeded to start a spin-off movie with Dwayne Johnson and calledwhich now occupies the 2019 release date. Universal later announced that both films will be released back-to-back on April 2020 and April 2021, respectively to end the franchise with Justin Lin returning to direct. While elite street racer and ex-convict and his cr