For a couple of weeks now Dwayne stayed mute when it comes to the future of the Fast and Furious franchise. Now, we finally have something from him on that topic. He raised his voice and addressed the critics he received, but unfortunately, he did it indirectly.
For Entertainment Weekly Dwayne gave an exclusive interview in which he addressed many of the controversies that have been circling around the fact that he is doing a spinoff based on the franchise and it will feature his character Hobbs who will go against the franchise’s “villain” Deckard Shaw (played by Jason Statham). On the topic at hand, Dwayne stated that “It’s been a challenging process because I feel like my intention from day one, when I first joined the cast, was to hopefully come in, have fun, and create a character that people will hopefully like and try to elevate the franchise. But in the process of elevating the franchise, I have always thought that in order for this to have real longevity and legs, we should spin out and create characters that can live on their own.”
During the interview, Johnson managed to “address” the criticism that comes from the F&F franchise, mainly the ones that Tyrese Gibson sent his way. If you recall, some time ago we reported on this topic, and we informed you that Gibson had some issues with the fact that The Rock wanted to work on a spinoff, which led to the fact that the release date of the Fast 9 was pushed back. Gibson even went a step further and threatened that his character Roman Pearce will not be in the ninth installment if Dwayne doesn’t pull out of the Hobbs project. We also shared a few of Gibson’s Instagram feeds and in one of those he wrote “Hello world………. hello loyal fans and loved ones from OUR fast universe…….. I’m sorry to announce that if Dewayne [sic] is in Fast9 there will no more Roman Peirce [sic] – You mess with family and my daughter’s survival I mess with yours………”
Johnson addressed this matter by stating for the Entertainment Weekly that “At the end of the day, the only thing I want to do is make a great movie for the fans.” He somehow stopped from naming Gibson directly while continuing with “I never ever get wrapped up in the sludge of the bulls— that can be connected at times to a franchise. So I never get dragged into it. I never respond to any of that.”