Top 10 Awesome Fast and the Furious Facts

In “Fast Five,” the fifth installment of the franchise, big surprise, the actor Tommy Lee Jones was set to play the Diplomatic Security Service Agent Luke Hobbs. But then Vin Diesel got crafty with Facebook and read a comment from a fan about how sick it would be if his badass Dominic Toretto character and The Rock had an epic battle on film sometime. This idea didn’t only get Diesel’s motor runnin’ but it also really revved up the producers - and the rest as they say, is drag racing history!

Do it fast. Do it furious, or at least, know how to drive a car. Both actresses Michelle Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster lacked the quintessential “Fast and the Furious” casting requirement, a license, when they were cast for the first film! Due to insurance requirements, these ladies had one shot to pass their driving exam or their parts would have been recast. Since then though, the duo has been seen receiving plenty of speeding tickets, with Brewster even admitting that she’s a bit of a speed demon.

In a surprise twist at the end of “Fast 5,” audiences learned that the character “Letty Ortiz” wasn’t dead and was in fact part of an organized crime ring! Not only was this a shock to fans but also to Michelle Rodriguez… wait, come again? According to Rodriguez, she only found out that she’d be starring in “Fast & Furious 6” when she went to the theaters and saw the grainy photo of herself in the 5th movie’s post-credit sequence.

Have you ever been on a plane? Well if you haven’t, let us tell you that takeoff only takes a few seconds as a typical runway is about a mile long. In the famous plane scene from “Fast & Furious 6,” experts have done the math - and based on the combination of the scene’s length, which is almost 13 minutes, and the plane’s speed, it appears that the runway must have been between 18-28 miles long! So we guess you could say that, in this scene, drivers chose to live life “one very long quarter mile at a time.”

Throwing a wrench in the franchise’s continuity, there are two “Fast and the Furious” short films. Directed by Philip Atwell, “Turbo-Charged Prelude” is the six minute long run-ups to “2 Fast 2 Furious” starring Paul Walker. Directed by Vin Diesel, “Los Bandoleros” gives more insight into the series’ characters as well as more history prior to the fourth film. On top of that, it's widely accepted that “Tokyo Drift” is actually the last movie in the franchise in terms of the chronological storyline as opposed to its place as the third production. Meanwhile, “Fast & Furious 6” brought the timelines together by replaying Han’s death from “Tokyo Drift,” with the villain from Furious 7 promising retribution for his brothers death in the 6th film. Did you get all that? No, well either way it leads perfectly into the 7th film and brings all of the films in the franchise together ingeniously.

Expecting all car-based movies to resemble “The Fast and the Furious” movies, imagine the surprise Sarah Deming (demming) must have felt when she went to see the critically acclaimed film “Drive” starring Ryan Gosling. Livid at the supposed false marketing that portrayed the film as the next FF, Deming decided to sue FilmDistrict, claiming that the producers deliberately misled the public, and that the neo-noir arthouse flick was therefore a massive disappointment. Funny thing is she only sought ticket reimbursement... Oh, and a halt to the future production of such misleading movie trailers. The case was ultimately dismissed.

When casting the original “The Fast and the Furious,” directors were looking at all the options for lead good boy gone bad character Brian O’Conner. And when we say all the options, we mean it: Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale and even, Eminem were considered. Thankfully, sanity prevailed and Paul Walker was finally chosen. In another equally interesting casting option, Denzel Washington was offered a part in “Furious 7,” which would have supposedly led to a larger role, possibly as the antagonist in a potential 8th movie. Washington turned it down with reports saying it was the same part that eventually went to Kurt Russell.

Car lovers around the world gravitate to the franchise like adrenaline junkies to the racetrack and it’s quite clear why. With some of the sickest, most souped-up, and powerful cars on screen, the franchise has featured hundreds of automobiles and has destroyed more than a thousand of them since the first movie launched. The variety and sheer volume of cars has intensified exponentially, as over 400 cars were used in the making of the 6th film!

After the tragic death of Paul Walker on November 30, 2013 in a single car accident, producers wanted to scrap another sequel. But they ultimately decided to give the all-important cast member a proper send off in “Furious 7” in the form of a retirement. At the time of his death, only half of Walker’s scenes had been filmed, and so with the creative help of special effects and Walker’s brothers Cody and Caleb as stand-ins, the film was eventually completed and released in April 2015.

Before we get to our top fact, here are a few honorable mentions:
- Final Title

- The Original Fast and the Furious Movie

- Crew Cattiness

- Two Scripts for “2 Fast 2 Furious”

In the words of Dominic Toretto “It don't matter if you win by an inch or a mile. Winning's winning” and boy, did they win by a mile. 2013’s “Fast & Furious 6” was a runaway success when it earned $500 million worldwide faster than any film in the history of Universal Pictures. The total box office tally for the action flick reached $788 million, almost 4 times the total reached by the first film! It has since been reported that “Furious 7” is the most expensive film of the franchise, with experts estimating the total cost to be in the realm of over $160 million! Ride or die, right?!

Do you agree with our list? Which “The Fast and the Furious” facts did you find the most ridiculous? For more thrilling top 10s published every day, be sure to subscribe to WatchMojo.com.