It is hard to believe at times that an action film involving street racing and grand theft auto from 2001 could explode into a years-spanning franchise, but there you have it with “Fast & Furious” from Universal Pictures. Not the onset of so-called “sequelitis,” not even the death of one of the lead stars while filming the seventh installment that released in 2013, could stop the saga of supercars, strange villains and family from chugging along and growing its franchise. The current director however has announced that the movies will end at 11 parts. And two months after the delayed premiere of “Fast 9,” “Fast 10” gets a release date.

Entertainment Weekly tells us that Universal has finally pegged the time when “Fast 10,” what has been stated to be the penultimate entry of the two-decades-old “Fast & Furious” action movie series, will be released in the spring, two years from now in 2023. This builds up from an earlier update by franchise star Vin Diesel that the movie will begin production at the start of next year, 2022. Filmmaker Justin Lin, who has been on the director’s chair of the franchise since the fourth (except for 7 and 8) will direct the last two.

There has also been a lot of speculation regarding what has been hyped as the last two movies of an action film franchise that has surprisingly kept going and growing beyond its mundane (if high-octane) premise. There are rumors that Lin may attempt to just direct “Fast 10” and 11 back to back. Then there is the matter of actor Sung Kang’s character Han, killed back in 2006’s “Tokyo Drift” which chronologically takes place before “Fast 6” (2011), only to return alive in “Fast 9” which premiered this past June.

Han’s death was supposedly engineered by Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham), big bad of “Furious 7” (2015) and brother to the main villain of “Fast 6” which saw the death of Han’s girlfriend Gisele (Gal Gadot). Now that Kang’s character is confirmed to have survived all this time, there is speculation that Gisele may not have died either. Kang already teased some plot stuff regarding Han’s beef with Shaw for the murder attempt, but also cryptically stating “All roads lead to Gisele,” something Justin Lin might have signed off on. What is more certain however is that former supporting cast Dwayne Johnson might not return to the main films due to falling out with Vin Diesel.

“Fast & Furious” fans can expect “Fast 10” to premiere on April 2023. While John Cena’s antagonist character in “Fast 9” survived, he is coy on whether will be back for that penultimate “Fast” film.

Image courtesy of Yahoo News