'Fast and Furious' franchise stars like The Rock and Vin Diesel take who wins fight scenes very, very seriously
- "Fast and Furious" franchise stars Vin Diesel, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, and Jason Statham have ways to ensure they never lose a fight in the movies, according to The Wall Street Journal.
- Diesel, for instance, tasks his sister and series producer Samantha Vincent with keeping track of how many times he's punched on screen.
- "Each 'Fast' character is a hero to someone watching, and we never forget that," a Universal spokesperson told The Journal.
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There's a method to the madness of the blockbuster "Fast and Furious" franchise's fight scenes.
Stars Vin Diesel, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, and Jason Statham have ways of making sure they look good in fight scenes in the movies, according to The Wall Street Journal, which spoke to producer Michael Fottrell and other anonymous producers and crew members for a report published on Thursday.
Statham negotiated a deal that ensures he won't get hit too many times on screen, the report said. Diesel tasked his sister and series producer Samantha Vincent with keeping track of how many times his character is punched. And Johnson has producers, editors, and fight coordinators ensure he dishes out equal amounts of pain as he receives, according to the report.
Diesel once proposed assigning numerical values to each move in a fight, but the plan was scrapped because it was too complicated, The Journal reported.
This is often why the characters never actually "lose" a fight. They are also regularly interrupted, such as when a prison riot breaks up a duel between Johnson and Statham in "Fate of the Furious."
"Each 'Fast' character is a hero to someone watching, and we never forget that," a Universal spokesperson told The Journal.
There are no winners in the actors' real-world feud, either. Johnson and Diesel had a falling out in 2016 when Johnson posted a Facebook message calling out his male costars for being too "chicken s---" to act professionally. In an interview with Rolling Stone last year, Johnson suggested he still had ill will toward Diesel.
"Hobbs and Shaw," the first spin-off of the franchise starring Johnson and Statham, comes to theaters on Friday. The untitled ninth "Fast and Furious" installment, starring Diesel, comes to theaters next year. Johnson is not returning.