In 2013, while the seventh installment of the popular Fast & Furious franchise was still in production, Paul Walker passed away after a car accident. Needless to say, they stopped shooting the sequel for quite awhile after this tragic event. It was up to director James Wan and writer Chris Morgan to think of a way to complete the movie without one of the main cast members.
It was definitely not an easy task, but they eventually made it, and the film was as successful as expected. Paul Walker’s character Brian O’Connor was written out of the scenario after his brother (played by Vin Diesel) had given him a warm send-off. However, have you ever wondered what the original ending was like? If you have, read on to see how the showrunners answered this question.
Here’s what Chris Morgan said when asked about this unfortunate event in an interview with Collider: “Well, the original ending, if I remember correctly, was our guys end up solving the problem and then kind of becoming—again, going more outlaw, it was sort of a happier ending that kind of ends with the insinuation that they were gonna go off onto this heist or this job.”
Furthermore, Morgan also added that, even if the actor had not died, he would have made certain changes at some point during that or some other sequel anyway, only this way, the story took a really sharp turn. “In regards to the story, the story actually kind of was the same. The only difference is that whereas we let Brian and Mia and their family kind of go off to just be a family and drop the action-y elements of their lives and stop risking everything when family is so important to them, otherwise we would’ve just kind of continued with Brian learning and adjusting his character a little bit,” Morgan explained.
Of course, it’s sad that it was someone’s death that made the writer change the course of action, but, as for the scenario itself, the audience liked it since the rest of the Fast & Furious crew members were so touched by Brian’s departure, that they started questioning their own lives.
Since the eighth entry, titled The Fate of the Furious, was just released earlier this month, we’ll have to wait for quite some time to see what is next going to happen to our favorite crew – Fast & Furious 9 is scheduled to hit theaters on April 19, 2019.
