Fast X's Tyrese Invites Other Countries To Boost Tourism With The Franchise
The "Fast & Furious" franchise has genuinely changed the cinematic landscape. It proves there are ways to reinvent a film series to keep it relevant to the modern day while becoming increasingly bombastic. It also shows you don't need to adapt from comic books or older movies to succeed financially. You just need family.
That ethos carries over into the latest installment — "Fast X." The film carries on the franchise's trajectory of becoming increasingly explosive and self-aware, but long-time series regular Tyrese Gibson, who plays Roman Pearce, thinks there's another way "Fast & Furious" can change the world. While the first "Fast & Furious" movies were just about street racers, the series has evolved to make the characters globe-trotting super spies who can make cars defy the laws of physics. And Gibson believes more countries should be courting the series to film there to enhance tourism.
As Gibson told Fandango, "What better way to market, promote, and advertise your city, state, or country than to have "Fast and the Furious" to film anything? So you know, if you were the Minister of Tourism and you had a budget to promote your movie, city, or country or a vacation resort and someone says the "Fast and Furious" wants to come to your resort and take over for a month you'll be like, 'Uh, by all means.'" Honestly, it's not a bad strategy.
Fast & Furious transcends borders
"Fast & Furious" has been filming in other countries since "Tokyo Drift," and especially starting with "Fast Five," the series has had no problem showcasing exotic locales. In fact, over the course of the franchise so far, the movies have been filmed in at least a dozen countries. Tyrese Gibson thinks a lot of places are missing out by not courting the movies to shoot elsewhere, and he has some impressive anecdotes to back up his claim.
He went on to tell Fandango, "I think everyone ultimately is happy, you know, that's what happened in Abu Dhabi with 'Furious 7.' Everybody was like, 'What's Abu Dhabi?" The tourism has been off the charts, and we love to have access to these unlimited exclusive places, but the people that are in politics, they know like, man, this is going to be seeing around the world. People are going to be coming to Rome after this film comes out, so why not let them have all access?" No doubt Gibson and crew love traveling the world and seeing new places, but there's also no denying the boon to local economics a franchise of this nature can have.
"Fast X" is the first installment of a concluding trilogy for the "Fast & Furious" movies, so hopefully, some of those Ministers of Tourism contact Universal about trying to get a movie to film there. It also helps make the franchise feel special in that it represents people from all walks of life.