The Fast, Furious, And Frustrating

 

Latest Script For Overblown Franchise Leaks; Fans Horrified

Los Angeles (AP) Be careful what you wish for. It's an old expression, and a hard lesson learned. Director Louis Leterrier has been busy prepping the eleventh film in the Fast & The Furious franchise (twelfth, if you include the spin off Hobbs and Shaw). Series star Vin Diesel has been vocal about one condition for the next film being that "Brian has to return." This, despite the fact that Paul Walker, who played the character, died during the production of Furious 7, with his role completed with the cooperation of his brothers Cody and Caleb for that film.

The studios have been tight lipped about how to approach that even while assembling the cast. Would the Walker brothers rise to the occasion and play their dead brother's character again, helped with some CGI? Would a dummy be used, a la Weekend At Bernies? Would Walker himself be resurrected from the grave in a voodoo ritual?

Now it appears to be too late to keep the secrets. A copy of the script has leaked online.

The film, slated to have a budget of 150 million dollars, will follow the ragtag team of racers (family, according to Diesel's Dom Toretto) who started out racing cars and ended up in globe trotting adventures with high stakes and no regard for gravity. The leaked script reveals that the film will be a short one, with all of the characters involved in a friendly stakes all out car race in Death Valley- a race that will end with all of them dying in a horrible crash.

And if that isn't bad enough, it gets worse. The entire group will find themselves coming to in hell, and standing there before them will be their old friend Brian O'Conner, former cop turned racer turned criminal turned retired criminal turned... whatever. The point is, all of them will be dead, stuck in hell. And despite the history of the franchise in getting characters out of bad places implausibly, this will be the end of the line. Once they all see Brian, the screen will fade to black, and the franchise will end.

"Look, truth is, we're all tired of this," Michelle Rodriguez said. "We're tired of the franchise, of the nonsense, of the lack of attention to physics... we're just tired. So it's time to move on and do something else. And yes, maybe that script might have gotten leaked by one of us. Or all of us. Or maybe none of us. The point is, this whole thing should have been called to an end seven movies ago."

Jason Statham, playing Deckard Shaw, agrees by concession. "And I didn't get into this until the second half. How long do you keep this up? You can't. So giving it the finality of all of us in hell... well, that's something I can live with."

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson was in agreement. "There's only so many times you can go flying two hundred feet from one car to another onscreen before your audience starts with the 'yeah, I'm not buying that' logic. And I say that as a guy who used to be a wrestler. Or maybe still am. What day is this?"

The studio is running damage control. "That's not the script!" spokesperson Callie Drake promised. "And the cast are just playing a prank, pretending that they're tired of the franchise! Everyone loves working on Fast & Furious! Look, we'll get to the bottom of whoever released that completely fake script, because it's fake. Fast & Furious is going to go on forever!"

The last word belongs to the franchise lead. Vin Diesel had this to say. "It's about family. And fast cars, and big stunts, and oh my god how did they do that moments. And family. Did I mention family? And everyone loves family. And that's what we are. And that's what we do. So of course we're gonna keep comin' back. And back some more. And back again after that. Because there's no way this franchise will ever run out of gas. Now if you'll excuse me, I've gotta see someone about a voodoo resurrection spell."