Less than a week into filming, longtime Fast and Furious director Justin Lin quit Fast X, leaving the studio scrambling to find a replacement for the highly anticipated film that would kick off a two-part ending to the epic “Fast Saga.” At the time of Lin’s abrupt exit, no reason was given except for the standard boilerplate Hollywood line of “creative differences.” However, a likely culprit has started to emerge: Vin Diesel.
According to New York Daily News, Diesel was reportedly back to his old antics of holding up production and not bringing the same level of professionalism as his co-stars. If all of this sounds familiar, it’s the same problem that sparked the now epic feud between Diesel and The Rock, prompting the latter to exit the main films and launch the spinoff series, Hobbs and Shaw.
“I’ve never seen anything like it. Lin’s giving up $10 or $20 million,” a veteran producer who is not involved with Fast X said about the director’s shocking exit. “Diesel shows up late to the set. He doesn’t know his lines. And he shows up out of shape.”
The source added, “No one is dissing Vin Diesel on the record, but everyone knows.”
On an interesting note, Lin’s exit (which is reportedly costing the studio “upwards of $600,000 to $1 million a day”) arrived shortly on the heels of Diesel revealing on Instagram that he fought to keep Jordana Brewster in the film after the first draft of the Fast X script left out her character, Mia Toretto, the sister of Vin’s Dominic Toretto and the wife of Paul Walker’s character, Brian, who is still alive in the franchise, which is… a whole other thing. The franchise is not without its own drama.
Anyway, was all of that about Vin getting head of the bad press, or was he simply being his carefree Diesel self and freestyling his thoughts to his legion of fans? It’s an interesting conundrum following yet another high-profile exit from a film series that’s supposed to be all about family.
(Via New York Daily News)