Given the success of Universal's Furious 7, which just so happens to be the studio, cast, and crew's touching tribute to the late actor Paul Walker, talks about the next installment for the franchise Fast and Furious 8 is now underway, with Eva Mendes said to reprise her role as the alluring Agent Fuentes.
Fast and Furious 8 has been confirmed as the start of a new trilogy, according to Screen Rant, and it will be the first time for the franchise to have it set on the East Coast, particularly the streets of New York City.
A lot of people want to be involved in the franchise, including Hollywood star Helen Mirren, but it seems more likely that Eva Mendes will be making a comeback.
The last her character was seen was during Fast Five. Her character tried to contact Hobbs, played by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson after his first encounter with the whole Fast and Furious crew. It was her character that informed Hobbs that Letty Ortiz, played by Michelle Rodriguez was still alive and is even working with Owen Shaw in London.
The only problem if Agent Fuentes does reprise her role is the fact that she had a previous connection to Brian, the character played by Walker. He was her love interest and the second film so bringing her back would probably stir up past concerns.
Furious 7 actually had a different ending in mind prior to Walker's untimely death. Director James Wan told Collider that the studio graciously decided to forgo the original ending in order to pay tribute to Walker.
"The original ending of Furious 7 was setting up, you know, the bigger world of where the Fast and Furious franchise could go into. And that's obviously very smart of them to think so. But when the tragedy happened, all of that became irrelevant. So it did not matter anymore, all of that stuff. And to the studio's credit, they did not push for that," he said.
They were all happy with the results of Furious 7, and it was quite challenging for Wan to put on a brave face after Walker died and continue on with the film. But everybody who worked on the franchise gained a new zeal when they decided that Furious 7 will be a tribute to Walker.
"It became very apparent to all of us that we needed to finish this movie to honor Paul's legacy and to basically honor his memories, and moving forward that became our number one goal. Like nothing else mattered, it was about making this movie for Paul," he said.
