In 2017, screenwriter Chris Morgan, present in the Fast & Furious saga since the third opus, explained that Vin Diesel, alias Dominic Toretto, was originally supposed to star in “Tokyo Drift”, when he will not only a cameo in it…
Veteran of the Fast & Furious saga, Vin Diesel lent his features to Dominic Toretto from the very first opus released in 2001 until the very last, Fast X, which burst into our dark rooms on May 17th.
But even if he is undoubtedly the main face of the franchise, the actor did not get back behind the wheel for 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003), a second part only worn by Paul Walker and Tyrese Gibson.
Nor for Tokyo Drift, at the end of which he still made a cameo which marked his big return to the saga to the delight of fans.
However, as screenwriter Chris Morgan revealed in 2017, who worked on the franchise until the 8th opus and the spin-off Hobbs & Shaw, during an interview for Uproxx websiteVin Diesel was initially to star in this third adventure in the streets of the Japanese megalopolis.
“There was a call for writing for the third film. I think I started by coming in and pitching my idea. Basically, it was Tokyo Drift, but it was with Vin [Diesel] and his character had to kind of go off and learn the art of drifting. And he had to investigate a murder,” explained Morgan.
Universal Pictures
Finally replaced by Lucas Black, Vin Diesel therefore agreed to return at the very end of the film without being paid. His only condition: to recover the rights to the Riddick franchise, held at the time by Universal. As Chris Morgan also explained in an interview, this cameo really marked a new start for the saga:
“At that point, at the end of the movie, everyone was like, ‘Oh my God, what does that mean? Are they going to do something else?’ And that gave us the ammunition to go in and do the fourth movie, which led to the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth. So it all kind of went from there.”
As for the nyctalope anti-hero Riddick, his (mis)adventures released in 2013, produced for a really tight budget of $38 million, unfortunately only brought in $98.3 million at the worldwide box office. What a little more to convince the actor to continue to keep the foot on the mushroom of his supercharged cars…