STACK #130 Aug 2016

DVD & BD

Q&A

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the next villain in a way that automatically affected you emotionally. For you to feel like a villain is being introduced at the same time he is taking away someone that you’ve already grown comfortable with creates an emotional response to the villain that you can’t anticipate, and you can’t make up. And that’s at the forefront of our story here. You have to see the fourth chapter to really appreciate where we are when we step into the first new chapter of the unknown road. Jason is one of those actors who keep it cool and consistent. He’s a wonderful talent to watch, period. We needed a character that represented the location we’d just lived in for two hours, which is London. Jason Statham did that. We wanted to get a formidable character, but we wanted the character’s formidability to be different than Hobbs’s formidability that we employed in 5. And then last, but not least, I went on Facebook, and I asked the fans, “Who would you like to see me work with? Who would you like to see me incorporate, if I could?” And the top name was Jason Statham, more than the next three combined. Dom's going to go after this guy.Through Hobbs, he comes in contact with someone, played by Kurt Russell, who makes him an offer he can’t refuse... That’s right. There is a device called God’s Eye, which as Dom says in the movie, is a glorified tracking device, but on steroids. Kurt Russell was one of those guys in the ‘70s and THE ROAD AHEAD continued Why do you think Jason Statham was right for the role of the villain?

travelling with the characters that they know so well. They still wanted to come home in 7, but as a characteristic of the saga over the years, fans have enjoyed travelling with the characters. When we travel and visit these other cultures and countries, it only strengthens that idea that we are all citizens of the world. As a producer, presumably you had a hand in picking the director.Why JamesWan? James Wan is somebody who has conquered a genre; he has proven you can take a horror genre and be extremely successful with it. In my mind, he’s become the new face of horror and what’s exciting about him is that he wants to do more. He was very excited about coming into this and trying to do something that’s memorable in all the right ways. There is a sensibility to his shooting style that I think was imperative for this kind of re-set chapter. I call it re-set chapter because Chapter 7 incorporates so many things that happened before but, as you know, with the Han character [Sung Kang] finally sinking off to Tokyo Drift at the end of Chapter 6. In some ways, this is the new frontier. So for all of us involved, we’re finally at a place where we don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. It is the unknown road ahead that is exciting, and I think that James Wan has taken scenes and shot them differently, with a certain kind of tension that he’s mastered in his horror world. Do you have an outline for future films? I think what Fast & Furious has done as a saga has proved that there is a new way to approach sequels and sagas. The way that they used to do it in the 1980s and 1990s was to make a movie and if it was really successful, they would use the brand and market it again and again and expect diminishing returns. The secret to counter that is to have a long view of what your story looks like over multiple pictures and, with Universal, I wouldn’t have been interested in just doing 7 if they didn’t have an idea or feel comfortable with what the new trilogy would look like, of how 7, 8 and 9 would roll out and how they would connect to one

‘80s that we all enjoyed going to see in movies, and we thought was a real badass at that time. The irony is Kurt Russell was chosen not necessarily to service Fast 7, but was chosen to service Fast 8. And the design was to have him introduced here, as we start going into a new shadowlike world of higher stakes, one that was designed to play out and pay off in the eighth film.

Increasing the emotional stakes is what will set this saga apart from any other movie

The way that Kurt Russell plays this role, he is the coolest guy in the room... The chemistry with Kurt was so gratifying, and he’s so much fun to work with. Right from the beginning, you could tell that this was something he was excited about, that there was a pride that he had about being a part of the Fast saga, and there was something precious to him about creating a character that would have such a deep relationship with DomToretto. We spent many a night and weekend talking about character, talking about the direction, and refining and retuning. I love having somebody that’s willing to look for that little extra nuance, look for that little extra magic.

We’ve been to some pretty incredible places with you through this franchise, but Abu Dhabi is pretty special. Very special. The audience now has grown to somewhat expect these new locations, and they enjoy

another. One of the things that I’m most proud about in the last three films is how much each film speaks to one another and how connected they are.

• Fast & Furious 7 is out on Aug 27

AUGUST 2015 JB Hi-Fi www.jbhifi.com.au

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