You may or may not have heard that Dwayne Johnson didn’t exactly have the best of times shooting Fast and Furious 8. A couple of days ago, The Rock himself took to Instagram to mark the final week of shooting by calling out an unnamed number of his “candy ass” male co-stars as unprofessional. Rumors quickly swirled as to who, exactly, Johnson was talking about (it’s probably Vin Diesel), and whether this was genuine or was some kind of dramatic stunt to hype the film, given Johnson’s experience with simulated rivalries.
But now, as filming winds down, Johnson has taken to Instagram to express his thanks to the film’s crew and provide a bit of an update to said beef:
“You guys reading this know how much I believe in the idea of TEAM EFFORT. That means respecting every person, their time and their value when they step on to my set or partner with our production company. And like with any team - that's a family - there's gonna be conflict. Family is gonna have differences of opinion and fundamental core beliefs.”
Johnson went on to stress that conflict isn’t always a bad thing, and the whole Fast & Furious 8 team is focused on one simple goal:
“To me, conflict can be a good thing, when its followed by great resolution. I was raised on healthy conflict and welcome it. And like any family, we get better from it. At the end of the day me and #F8 co-stars all agree on the most important thing: Delivering an incredible movie to the world. #Fast8 #IcemanCometh #FamilyGrowth”
So, is the beef over? It doesn’t sound like everything’s hunky dory, but it also doesn’t sound like Johnson is going to let contentious on-set relationships get in the way of making a good movie. Whatever the case, I doubt we’ve heard the last of this, and the Fast and Furious 8 press tour should be mighty interesting.
Directed by F. Gary Gray, Fast 8 opens in theaters on April 14, 2017.