If you are a fan of the Fast & Furious saga, you know that the franchise pushes the boundaries of car acrobatics with every installment, and that won’t be different in Fast X. Just by the trailer of the new entry it's possible to see that Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) will be at it again, and this time even helicopters will be featured into the mix. In an interview with Collider, filmmaker Louis Leterrier (The Incredible Hulk) revealed how difficult it is to make those action sequences look as cool as they do.
During the interview, Leterrier told our own Editor-in-Chief Steve Weintraub that it’s surprisingly not hard to pull those shots off but, of course, it takes all hands on deck to make it work – and sometimes they even need to come up with the appropriate technology to make some impossible camera angles come to life. At the same time, Leterrier revealed that even though there’s a lot of CGI involved, he likes to shoot stuff for real as much as possible:
"So you had to create stuff that never existed; you know, cameras, grip equipment, because that's one single shot, there's no crane that can do that, and then the actors did that. So we had to create this idea with [Stephen Windon], he’s the DP, and his technical team we came up with the pieces of equipment, like we all pitched in. […] I like using technology. I like sort of breaking down technology, so we go back to the basics. I like to look at what exists now and then go back to 10 years ago, or 20 years ago, when I started. I was like, 'Oh, I wish I had this equipment to do this thing.' Now we have this thing, let's see how we can use that and not use a computer to do these shots and use technical equipment. So do shots that we couldn't do 10 years ago and we use computers to do those shots, but do them practically now because the equipment exists, the cameras are smaller, they're better.”
Car Acrobatics Are Common Territory for Fast & Furious
Across previous entries in the Fast & Furious franchise, we’ve seen cars jump from airplanes, race on top of ice, drift through the streets of Japan and even go to outer space. We are yet to discover all that’s in store for Fast X, but the trailer already revealed that we’ll go back to one of the most iconic car chases that happened in Brazil with Dom and Brian (Paul Waker) carrying a giant safe through the streets of Rio. This time, however, we’ll see it from Dante’s (Jason Momoa) perspective.
Aside from Diesel and Momoa, the cast of Fast X also features Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, John Cena, Sun Kang, Nathalie Emmanuel, Jason Statham, Helen Mirren, Scott Eastwood, Daniela Melchior, Charlize Theron, Alan Ritchson, Brie Larson, and Rita Moreno.
You can watch the latest trailer below: