Christopher Nolan Isn't Shy About His Love For The Fast & Furious Franchise
While critics and fans may not treat actor-producer Vin Diesel's Fast & Furious movies with the same sort of reverence as Christopher Nolan's work, they should perhaps listen to what the "Oppenheimer" writer-director has to say about the action-adventure franchise before passing any final judgments.
Most importantly, Nolan does not try to justify his love for the series with the dismissive phrase "guilty pleasure." His feelings are quite the opposite. "I have no guilt about being a fan of the Fast & Furious franchise — a tremendous action franchise," the Oscar nominee told the eponymous host of "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert." "I watch those movies all the time. I love them."
During the interview, Colbert admitted that he hadn't seen any of the Fast & Furious movies and jokingly asked the filmmaker to watch all 10 installments with him in one day. "You don't need to watch them all in one sitting. It's only the last few where a very specific arc of mythologies develop," Nolan said. "I would start with 'Tokyo Drift.'"
Director Rob Cohen started the franchise with "The Fast and the Furious" in 2001, while John Singleton helmed the sequel, "2 Fast 2 Furious," in 2003. Nolan told Josh Horowitz on his podcast "Happy Sad Confused" that he's a fan of Cohen's original movie but has a soft spot for the third film — director Justin Lin's "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift" — which was released in 2006.
Nolan loves how Lin's Fast and Furious films got 'bigger'
Justin Lin became a Fast & Furious fixture after "Tokyo Drift," as he returned to direct 2009's "Fast & Furious," 2011's "Fast Five," 2013's "Fast & Furious 6," and 2021's "F9." "Justin Lin's iterations, as they got crazier and bigger and crazier and bigger, they became something else, but something else kind of fun," Christopher Nolan said on "Happy Sad Confused."
The filmmaker has no issues with the Fast & Furious movies getting bigger with each entry because that's what directors want when making sequels. "Everyone always complains that sequels get bigger, but we are the people making sequels get bigger," Nolan said. "We do want them bigger. You don't want them smaller. It's the 'Alien 3' lesson ... You can do it, but it's not gonna make anybody happy even though, personally, I love that film."
The Fast & Furious franchise hit a speed bump in April 2022, when Lin exited "Fast X" less than a week after production started. Luckily, the director was quickly replaced with Marvel Cinematic Universe veteran Louis Leterrier. "The Incredible Hulk" filmmaker must have impressed the producers since "Fast and Furious 11" secured Leterrier to return as director a few weeks before the release of "Fast X" in May 2023.