‘Fast and Furious’ Movies Will Inevitably End With Movies 10 & 11
By George Robbins
For years, there have been countless franchises that have populated the market when it comes to movies and other forms of media. Without these franchises, there would not be quite as many merchandising opportunities for companies as there are now. Franchises give companies the ability to do something more with an intellectual property than just putting that one form of media out there and hoping it does well. Of course companies can merchandize for films that stand on their own, but it is better if they were to build up some kind of base for that thing first. This is the primary point where franchises really start to come in handy because they build this base.
The base structure for merchandising primarily comes from the fact that whatever it is being ripped from has some sort of huge fan base. Of course, individual movies can have massive fan bases, but most of the time, franchises get the largest and most devoted fan bases. A franchise is not just limited to media, but that is where it is primarily found and recognized as one since that is where the term really comes into play. A movie franchise can go and turn an entire studio on its head if it is done correctly and everything they do goes well with the audience. This is how we have ended up with so many well known franchises over the years and we will no doubt be getting even more in the future.
Some of the most well-known franchises out there are related to the science-fiction medium which is how we ended up with Star Wars and the MCU standing at the top. Star Wars was obviously the first well-established franchise, but it was the start of something no one knew there was even a market for. It is easily one of the longest running franchises in the movie medium and it has grown large enough to be a part of everything from movies, to books, to toys, and even video games over the years. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that this franchise will continue to encapsulate so many peoples’ lives for countless years to come. Stemming from this franchise, and already mentioned, are the toys and games which are a part of the merchandising process. These are an excellent tell of how far the franchise as a whole has managed to make it thus far.
Even though it is definitely not as old as the Star Wars franchise, the MCU is still over 10 years old and now holds a firm place as perhaps the biggest franchise there is. It was a bit easier for them to establish this franchise due to the amount of source material already on hand from the over 80 years before the first MCU film released. However, Marvel studios breathed an incredible breath of fresh air into their films, easily making them fan builder films. This eventually culminated in them being able to broaden their horizons due to being owned by Disney and countless other things came out of the franchise. Just like Star Wars, this included the movies, books, TV shows, toys, and video games and it is still so far from being over.
Not every singe franchise has the same opportunities as these franchises do and instead have to rely almost entirely on the films. Like I said, there are plenty of stand-alone films that have merchandise to help hold them up, but some films mostly just end up relying on themselves. There is almost no better example of this than in the ‘Fast and Furious‘ franchise and there are not many movies that reach the same heights other than the aforementioned franchises. This action franchise almost always tries to outdo every previous film in its line-up, with the action sequences getting more and more wild as each film comes up. Thus we are now heading towards the release of ‘Fast and Furious 9’ which was supposed to have released already, but was unfortunately delayed.
Due to the pandemic, ‘Fast and Furious 9’ was unfortunately pushed back into 2021 despite having a release date originally set in May of this year. This doesn’t have much of an affect on this action movie juggernaut of a franchise though as plans were immediately made to put time to good use as they are planning the last of their mainline films. The ‘Fast and Furious’ franchise will come to an end with a two-part movie which will be told over the course of both the 10th and 11th movies. Both installments will be directed by Justin Lin and we are sure to see them play out over the next couple of years depending on how things go with this pandemic. That aside, this is a popular franchise, so they have no reason to stop making money. So there is no doubt that they will try to keep this franchise alive by making spin-offs.