Fast & Furious franchise fans will be happy to hear that Lucas Black will return to the fold in James Wan's Fast & Furious 7. Appearing only in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Black will make up for his absence by not only starring in the upcoming feature, but the next two after that. Black's drift-racing character, Sean Boswell, will become a series regular for at least the next film trilogy. For those of you who have been paying attention throughout the entire franchise, you'll understand why it makes sense to add Black/Boswell back in now. If you need a refresher, hit the jump.
The film also stars Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson, Tyrese Gibson, Jason Statham and Djimon Honsou. Check out Fast & Furious 7 when it opens July 11, 2014.
Deadline reports that Black will return in Fast & Furious 7 and at least the two films that follow it. As I mentioned above, Black previously starred in the franchise's third installment, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. (Spoilers follow.) In the 2006 picture, Sean Boswell (Black) was introduced as an Alabama teenager living in Tokyo and learning how to drift in order to compete in street races. The picture also introduces Sung Kang as Han, who met a disastrous end with an explosive conclusion to the film. Fans were somewhat confused, and understandably so, when Kang returned as Han in the fourth, fifth and sixth installments.
The trick is in realizing that the order of the films in which they were released is not the chronology of events within the films themselves. The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift is actually the most recent film as far as in-movie events are concerned, especially since the ending of that film ties into the ending of Fast & Furious 6. In other words, the fourth, fifth and sixth installments occur after the first two films, but act as prequels to Tokyo Drift. Fast & Furious 7 should tie all of the previous films together, especially with the addition of Black, and will get us back on the chronological track.
So, to get the full picture, watch the films in this order:
- The Fast and the Furious (2001)
- Turbo Charged Prelude (2003 Video)*
- 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)
- Los Bandoleros (2009 Short Film)*
- Fast & Furious (2009)
- Fast Five (2011)
- Fast & Furious 6 (2013)
- The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006)
- Fast & Furious 7 (2014)
*Although I'm a fan of the films, I'm not familiar with the videos and shorts that popped up in between theatrical releases, so I'll take this order as a leap of faith.