Let’s be clear: this move is completely driven by finances as Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s impact on the Fast and Furious franchise skyrocketed the box office into the stratosphere.
So a little history…
This isn’t the first time that muscular macho men have beefed with each other or been super competitive.
The most famous example in cinema has been a trio: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, and Jean-Claude Van Damme. With the exception of Predator, where Van Damme was originally slated to play the title creature opposite of Schwarzenegger, these actors weren’t trying to appear in the same films. They were attempting to one-up each other in box office performances and what films they starred in.
For my money, I think Arnold did the best out of these three and he even explains in this fantastic Vanity Fair video how strategic some of his choices were, and how they affected Stallone in particular.
However, this beef is still fairly mild and all three would later team up for The Expendables movies, showing that with enough time…and money, that a screen could be shared be this much bravado.
Okay, so let’s talk about the beef between Diesel and Johnson, and to a lesser degree Statham.
Some of this is a result of the machismo I described between that 80’s trio of actors. They never wanted to be seen as lesser than anothe,r so they went out of their way to pick specific roles to either one-up a performance or appear in a better role. However, recent complications have come as our modern leading men have to interact with one another to create billion-dollar franchises. Regardless of how popular they are, they weren’t going to create a franchise this valuable on their own and had to team up. That inevitably leads to issues: how do you maintain your carefully sculpted image when you’re on screen together?
Contractual Tough Guys
So, the idea of Hollywood stars crafting their image through their contracts – or what they will or will not do on screen – isn’t new.
Stars ask for bizarre things in their contracts all the time. Some of it’s about billing, for example, what order your name is listed in the credits or how you’ll appear on the poster. It might seem petty, but once you’ve gained a certain amount of stature or momentum, you want to maintain that and all the perks and opportunities it entails. Other ones include: maintaining the same number of lines as your co-star (even if it makes no sense for the story), demanding to stay in character, and having people refer to you as Mr. President during a three-month shoot (Daniel Day-Lewis), Tom Cruise and Robert Downey Jr’ height disparities, or the size and quality of your trailer/dressing room (Uma Thurman).
What really takes the cake is how much you can get hit or lose fights in the Fast and Furious franchise. Inside of each of Vin Diesel, The Rock, and Jason Statham’s contracts are stipulations on how much they can get hit over the course of a Fast film, to ensure that they don’t come off looking like a loser. This infamously led to Vin Diesel personally keeping track of how many hits each actor was taking and eventually hiring his younger sister to handle the math after it got unwieldy.
This isn’t the sole issue that led to the beef, but this kind of petty hit-count tracking for an action film definitely didn’t help. It highlights a production set culture that’s way too concerned with image and not the actual substance of what’s happening on film (which probably explains why I’ve disliked so many entries in the franchise.)
The Beef
Okay, so what’s actually happened between Vin and The Rock?
Well…that’s the thing, it’s been incredibly hard to get a straight answer out of either of them. As far as I can tell, reading a variety of articles and interviews on this, Johnson was upset at how his character was treated between Furious 7 and Fate of the Furious, which led to the infamous Instagram post where he indirectly (and later directly confirmed) called out Diesel for being a “candy ass” for how Vin handled himself on set. Diesel would reply about how hard he was on Johnson in a “tough love” way in order to get the Hobbs character to come out the way he desired.
That’s where the awkwardness of Fate of the Furious comes in, where neither character shares a scene, resulting in the Hobbs and Shaw spin-off film and Johnson subsequently saying that while he regretted airing dirty laundry, it didn’t change the sentiment for how things were run with the Fast franchise, and saying that he “laughed hard” at Diesel tough love comments, stating most recently that he won’t be returning.
What’s Changed?
That’s also complicated because nothing has moved that needle except finances and more social media awkwardness. Tyrese called out Johnson for reportedly torpedoing the latest Fast film’s chances due to his actions, but he had been out of that project for a while before the pandemic would ultimately change the release date (which I find hilarious because the film still made $721 million despite all those setbacks). To Diesel’s credit, he pushed back hard publicly against that narrative, reiterating the reality of the pandemic on that film’s production.
Financially, ever since Johnson joined the franchise, it has truly hit a different stratosphere. After the original Fast and Furious film, the series had been on a downtrend with 2 Fast 2 Furious and Tokyo Drift. It would rebound with the fourth entry, earning $360 million worldwide. Once Johnson joined with the 5th entry, however, the worldwide gross would break $626 million, and subsequent entries wouldn’t dip under $700 million since he joined. Now, we can’t assign all of that revenue to Johnson, but he certainly was a bigger household name than any of the franchise regulars and that likely helped the film do better overseas.
Diesel has been trying to woo Johnson back to the fold for the final two films, knowing that the climatic two-parter wouldn’t be complete without an appearance from Hobbs, stating: “I swore that we would reach and manifest the best Fast in the finale that is 10, I say this out of love… but you must show up, do not leave the franchise idle you have a very important role to play. Hobbs can’t be played by no other. I hope that you rise to the occasion and fulfill your destiny.”
While we await word from Johnson, that cameo seems unlikely, given his recent statement in July to The Hollywood Report that he’s done with the franchise (and that recent jab in his Netflix film Red Notice likely won’t help). Diesel may also be worried about the reception the latest film got, but it still made so much money I would be surprised if the final two entries completely suffer without Johnson’s involvement.
Conclusion
Ultimately, what might move the needle the most are fans being vocal and continuing to express their desires to these two embittered co-stars reunited. Given how many times Diesel’s Dominic Toretto character has spoken about the importance of family though, the irony will be thick and rich if they can’t set aside their differences for the good of their cinematic family.
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