New Fast & Furious 9 trailer is out. Universal Pictures has unveiled the new trailer for F9, whose release got delayed significantly due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Fast & Furious 9 (or F9 in some markets) was originally slated to open in May last year, but it was pushed as the world entered the first lockdown to April 2021. And then later in 2020 it was delayed again to accommodate the next Bond movie, No Time to Die, before jumping an additional month. With the US now recovering — cinemas in Europe are still shut, and India is heading back into lockdown — and the big China market open for a while, Universal is ready to release the next Fast & Furious movie.
And that’s why we have a new F9 trailer which gives us more of the zany over-the-top action that has now come to define the Fast & Furious franchise. These guys all essentially turned into superheroes along the way, and the Fast & Furious 9 trailer makes it clear that nothing can hurt them — no matter what they are launched out of or into. The four-minute F9 trailer plays out like a movie clip for the first minute, before switching into more traditional trailer fare. It then sets up the stakes: Dom’s (Vin Diesel) brother Jakob (John Cena) has got his lands on some MacGuffin that will apparently go into space to launch itself, yep Fast & Furious is going into space. That brings everyone back, including a someone from the dead: Han Lue (Sung Kang).
In addition to Diesel, Cena and Kang, Fast & Furious 9 also stars Michelle Rodriguez as Dom’s wife Letty Ortiz, Tyrese Gibson as Roman Pearce, Ludacris as Tej Parker, Jordana Brewster as Dom’s sister Mia Toretto, Nathalie Emmanuel as Megan Ramsey, Helen Mirren as Magdalene Shaw, Charlize Theron as Fast & Furious 8 villain Cipher, Lucas Black as Sean Boswell, Bow Wow as Twinkie and Jason Tobin as Earl Hu (from The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift), Anna Sawai as Elle, Michael Rooker as Buddy, and Cardi B as Leysa. Finn Cole, Vinnie Bennett, Ozuna, and Francis Ngannou have undisclosed roles on F9.
Justin Lin is back in the director’s seat, for the first time since Fast & Furious 6. He has also directed Tokyo Drift and Fast Five. Lin also co-wrote the F9 screenplay with Daniel Casey. Lin and Diesel also produced Fast & Furious 9 along with Neal H. Moritz, Jeff Kirschenbaum, Joe Roth, Clayton Townsend, and Samantha Vincent. Moritz’s Original Film, Diesel’s One Race Films, and Roth/ Kirschenbaum Films produced F9 for Universal Pictures. Fast & Furious 9 was made on reported budget of over $200 million (roughly Rs. 1,500 crores).
Fast & Furious 9 is out May 19 in South Korea, June 25 in India and the US, and July 8 in the UK. Whether it actually releases in India on time will entirely depend on how the country is faring with the second COVID-19 wave. On Tuesday, India saw 1,84,372 new cases.
Why did LG give up on its smartphone business? We discussed this on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Later (starting at 22:00), we talk about the new co-op RPG shooter Outriders. Orbital is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts.