It’s rare that a film franchise makes it to its sixth or seventh entry, and even rarer that the latter films end up being more successful than what came before.  But that's exactly what has happened with the Fast & Furious franchise, which hit a high mark with the excellent Fast Five at $626 million worldwide and went even higher with Fast & Furious 6’s worldwide gross of $788 million.  The next film, Furious 7, is due out in April with high expectations, but the series suffered a major loss late last year when star Paul Walker sadly passed away.  Recently, word surfaced that director Justin Lin—who helmed entries 3 through 6—might be returning to the franchise for a multi-film wrap up that will bring the series to a close.

Now Universal Pictures chairman Donna Langley has weighed in on the end of the franchise, saying she envisions it continuing on for at least three more films.  More after the jump. 

Speaking to THR in part of a roundtable interview with fellow studio heads, Langley addressed where she sees the end of the road for Fast & Furious:

“We think there's at least three more. Paul is, and always will be, an integral part of the story. But there are many other great characters, and it's also an opportunity to introduce new characters. I think it's still a growing franchise. We'll see what happens with Furious 7, obviously, but our box office has grown over the past three or four films and internationally, in particular. So we think that there's more to mine there. But we're of course very mindful about fatigue.”

Three more movies would, of course, stretch the Fast & Furious franchise to 10 films, which is kind of amazing.  When watching The Fast and the Furious for the first time in 2001, I never would have guessed that I was witnessing the beginning of a major movie series.  Obviously the box office performance dictates how far Fast & Furious stretches, but if these past few films have been any indication, the grosses are going up, up, up, which means Universal will work hard to keep this thing going for as long as possible.

What do you think about the prospect of Fast & Furious continuing on through Fast & Furious 10 or more?  Do you think 10 is a good number?  Should the series end sooner now that Walker is gone?  Sound off in the comments below.