There sure are a lot of people in Fast X. Not only has the family been growing larger with every film, the end credits feature the surprise return of not one but two alumni. It also has Alan Ritchson, the former CW Aquaman who’s now Amazon’s Jack Reacher. But Ritchson wasn’t the first person cast in his Fast and Furious role. That was Keanu Reeves.
The casting sounds like it was last minute. “It was just a little stroke of luck and good timing,” Ritchson told Entertainment Weekly. “I was working on a movie with Hilary Swank up in Winnipeg in the freezing cold, and I got a call that things had shifted in the plans with Keanu Reeves, which is I think who was originally intended to play my part. Tough act to follow.”
Had Reeves been able to keep his original commitment to Fast X, he would have played Aimes, the fed who goes rogue to work with Jason Momoa’s villain. As it happened, Reeves was also nearly the villain in Hobbs & Shaw before the gig went to Idris Elba. Maybe third time’s the charm in one of the multiple spinoffs planned for the series.
After Ritchson took over the role, he briefly thought he’d lost it. He got a call from one of the producers, who told him, “You’re not going to be working with [director] Justin [Lin] on this.” To him that sounded like he was being let go. The producer then said what he meant was that Lin and the production were parting ways, with him being replaced by Louis Leterrier. Whoops!
(Via EW)