The family is getting bigger — potentially much bigger. On Monday, Fast and Furious franchise star Vin Diesel (The Fast and the Furious, Fast & Furious) announced that no less than four TV shows in the Fast and Furious “universe” are being developed at Universal Television. One of those is a live-action show heading to NBCUniversal’s Peacock, according to Deadline.
Diesel is reportedly executive producing the series adaptation, with writers Mike Daniels and Wolfe Coleman attached to pen the pilot. Daniels previously wrote for vehicle-based shows Sons of Anarchy and Pan Am, and is writing and producing a revival of The Rockford Files, a TV show that regularly featured car chases and driving sequences. Daniels and Coleman worked together on Shades of Blue, the three-season TV series that starred Jennifer Lopez and Ray Liotta about an NYPD detective going undercover to expose her fellow corrupt cops.
Who’d win in a race, Dominic Toretto in his 1970 Dodge Charger or Lightning McQueen in himself?
Two racers, three tracks, one winner
Details on the Fast and Furious TV spinoffs were not announced, but according to Deadline, Diesel hinted that the shows will expand upon the stories of “the legacy characters” of the franchise. That idea presents the Fast and Furious IP holders with a wealth of options. Consider:
- Young Dom, which could expand upon the younger version of Dominic Toretto as seen in F9: The Fast Saga. In that film, Dom was played by Vinnie Bennett in flashbacks set in 1989. The story of F9 revealed the death of Jack Toretto, father of Dom and Jakob, which leads to the brothers’ falling out and shoehorned-in feud.
- Fast and Furious: 1923, a period piece in which a gang of horse-mounted thieves steals combination vinyl platter and wax cylinder phonographs from stagecoaches and gradually adopt the automobile over the course of the series. Presumably, the show would tell the stories of previous-generation Torettos and reveal the Toretto family recipe for tuna salad in its final episode.
- Fast and Furious: Roman & Tej, a show about Roman (Tyrese Gibson) and Tej (Ludacris) doing silly stuff, such as testing Roman’s immortality theory with deadly new stunts each week and Tej doing computer things. (He could hack the mainframe or upload a virus to the firewall, for example.) This would be a concept driven by witty banter.
- Fast and Furious: SUV, a show where all the cars driven are exclusively SUVs, a power fantasy for people who will not be able to afford gasoline for their own gas-guzzlers by the time the TV shows come out.
While none of the above ideas are confirmed, they are all, of course, excellent spec pitches that producers Vin Diesel, Sam Vincent, Neal Moritz, Pavun Shetty, Chris Morgan, and Jeff Kirschenbaum should reach out to us to option.
With Universal supposedly committing to four Fast and Furious TV shows, it may be positioning the franchise to be the next Yellowstone, CSI, 9-1-1 or Chicago [Blank], with multiple variations on a common theme and ample crossover opportunity. One could certainly see a Fast and Furious show that focuses not on the high-speed street drivers, but the various governmental task forces charged with hunting them down.
The Fast and Furious franchise has already spun off to television with an animated series, Fast & Furious Spy Racers. The kid-friendly series focused on the adventures of Tony Toretto, the younger cousin of Dominic Toretto, and a group of teenage street racers who are recruited to infiltrate a criminal gang. Fast & Furious Spy Racers streamed on Netflix for 52 episodes.
Diesel and company have famously struggled to deliver the follow-up to Fast X, the 2023 film that is meant to serve as the penultimate entry in the Fast and Furious film franchise. The supposed final F&F film, Fast Forever, is scheduled for release on March 17, 2028.
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