There seems to be almost nothing on Earth that Vin Diesel loves more than the Fast Saga. In fact, as the series hurries to a close sometime in 2025 or 2026 or 2027 or 2028, it appears Diesel isn’t willing to let its world go forever. On Monday, he announced that the Fast world would gain four new streaming series on Peacock, despite folks at Peacock saying that it would only get one.
Diesel announced the four series at an NBCUniversal event in New York City, according to the Hollywood Reporter, where he spoke with advertisers and Jimmy Fallon (at press time, it’s unclear which of those is more insufferable). Diesel said, in no uncertain terms, that “Peacock is launching four shows from the “Fast and Furious” universe.” Despite the confidence of that claim, though, the Hollywood Reporter spoke with someone at Peacock who said there was only one series in development.
Who’s right?
Expanding the Fast movies — a series that is, at its core, about one specific Family and its associated motor vehicles — into a sprawling cinematic universe initially seems like a terrible idea. “Hobbes and Shaw” certainly didn’t do it well, and even greats like “Star Wars” have struggled to grow past their core casts. I think, though, that the Fast universe actually stands a shot at doing this pretty well. The films have already set up a world where criminals do cars good, and where the United States government has some sort of off-the-books department of doing cars even better. That’s broad enough to be almost a genre in itself, and any kind of car-based action media could reasonably be a Fast spinoff without hurting the original works.
So far, though, it remains unclear exactly how much Fast media we should expect. One show is confirmed to be in development, but Diesel may be right about talks towards further installments. There’s also a chance that Peacock is in talks to take over the Netflix-produced “Fast And Furious: Spy Racers” series, which I’m just now learning got a full six seasons of episodes.
