How have the Fast and Furious movies grossed over $6 billion at the worldwide box office? It’s not the cars, or fun casting, or the soundtracks, although those help. No, the number one explanation is that they’re f*cking cool. While other studios and franchises prize realism over all else, Vin Diesel & Co. are speeding past submarines and launching cars into space.
On a live episode of the essential How Did This Get Made? podcast, hosts Paul Scheer, June Diane Raphael, and Jason Mantzoukas covered The Fast and the Furious with guest Seth Rogen. He revealed something a Fast and Furious producer once told him, although not before Mantzoukas, in all his “what’s up, jerks?” glory, responded to an audience member question about what might be considered a “plot hole” with, “The answer is cuz it’s f*cking cool.” Amen.
Anyway, back to Rogen. “I’ve worked with Neil Moritz. He produced The Green Hornet, and I produced The Boys with him, and Preacher, and I’ve done a lot of stuff with him over the years, so I know him pretty well,” he said. “And when we were making The Green Hornet, there was an argument over a part of the movie. It was like me and Michel Gondry and him and Evan [Goldberg], my partner, all like, arguing over something. And Neil hit the table and he goes, ‘Listen, there’s logic and there’s cool and cool wins every time!’”
And that’s how we get a car jumping from one skyscraper into another skyscraper.
Mantzoukas pitched that “there’s logic and there’s cool and cool wins every time” should be on a t-shirt. I would buy it, as long as the shirt said that on the front and “it’s f*cking cool” on the back.
You can listen to the podcast below.