With the first official trailer for the seventh Fast & Furious film (now titled Furious 7) taking the Internet by storm and racking up over 100 million views in just 48 hours, Universal is already thinking about where the franchise goes next. If rumors pan out, it could be that it goes back instead of forward – at least in terms of who’s behind the camera.
Thanks to scheduling shifts, rumors have emerged that Universal may be interested in getting director Justin Lin to return to the franchise he helped revive. Lin, who left the series after the last film (handing off directorial duties to James Wan) so that he could direct Jeremy Renner’s Bourne Identity spin-off, now finds that project on the back burner after recent news revealed that Matt Damon would be returning to play Jason Bourne in a new film of his own. With Wan set to make The Conjuring 2, there’s a potential opening where Lin could slide back behind the Furious camera.
The rumor goes on to speculate that Lin and Universal would like to ink a deal that allows Lin to shoot multiple Fast & Furious films at once, with the idea being that he’d end the series once and for all. Seems fitting that Lin would be the guy to put the capper on the wildly successful franchise since he essentially resurrected it, but will Universal really want to pull the plug on a series that's immensely popular? Could we see characters spin off? Maybe a reboot of sorts? It's anyone's guess right now.
While all of this is purely speculation (and neither Lin nor Universal has commented on it), it does make sense. We’re just still trying to decide what the bigger news here is – that Lin could return, or that Fast & Furious might eventually end. Please don't end!
