The Fast and the Furious franchise has grossed over $5 billion from the movies alone, and that’s before you consider tie-ins from short films to theme park rides to video games to a board game. Their latest venture to expand the brand? A live arena show, featuring stunts and cars from the films, to say nothing of stars like Vin Diesel. Diesel announced his involvement in a Facebook post this week:
“As you know, my work with ‘Fast and Furious’ never ends, which I’m grateful for because of you all. I am in New York, believe it or not, and we are filming something that is going to be pretty state of the art, something no one’s ever seen before, which is a live show. …I think it’s first going to be showed at the O2 Arena in London, but it’s going to go all over the world and we’re really excited about it. It’ll be a way for you to see the action first-hand, first time it’s ever been done.”
From Variety‘s Dixie Limbachia, here are more details on what’s planned there:
Universal Studios is teamed up with Brand Events for the international arena tour, based on the hit franchise, which kicks off in January. …The show will include re-creations of some of the stunts and cars in the eight-film franchise, which is still expanding. The executive producers are Chris Hughes and James Cooke-Priest, along with writer/director Rowland French.
So, live Fast and Furious stunts? That could be interesting. Auto stunt shows have been done before, of course, but a live Fast and the Furious one will certainly have some brand recognition, and could wind up being on a much larger scale than most. And the prospect of seeing some of the incredible stunts from the movies (and the estimated $524 million in on-screen property damage they’ve racked up) might be a good way to get people in the door. We’ll see how this works out, but it’s certainly an ambitious plan, and Diesel’s involvement should help take it even further.
[Variety]
