The franchise of "The Fast and the Furious" really encountered a major setback when they lost one of their lead stars Paul Walker due to a tragic car accident, and for a while, it even looked like "Furious 7" would not be completed.
In the end, the entire cast and crew worked harder than ever to get the movie done in remembrance of Walker. His character Brian O'Connor lived on in the franchise as a contented husband and father, and his on-screen friend Dominic Toretto (played by Vin Diesel) finally bid him goodbye.
For the next movie, "Furious 8," producer Neal H. Moritz said that it's tough to move on without Walker, and that is why they are going to reinvigorate the franchise.
"We're trying to do what we always do, which is try to come at it from a character point of view and figure out where the characters would go from here," he told Screen Rant. "I think the thing that's made 'The Fast and the Furious' special is obviously we have incredible action and so on. But the thing that people really relate to the most is the characters."
He said that they are fortunate to have a lot of great characters audiences have grown to love, but unfortunately, they no longer have Walker.
"His character... has moved on. But we feel like there's a lot still to be mined," he admitted. "That's where we're starting. We're really talking about the characters, where they all sit right now. It's a huge challenge.
Earlier, Diesel revealed that "Furious 8" will feature a brand new trilogy that is set in New York. Kurt Russell, who played a slick government agent who helped Toretto and his crew take care of Deckard Shaw (played by Jason Statham) in "Furious 7" will reportedly get a meatier role in the next film.
"That's going to be interesting, because the character has been purposely been treated in a certain way so that he can or can't. The 'can' will be an interesting stretch. It works, because I understand what it is and we came up with it. It's like, 'Oh, wow! That's cool!'" said Russell.
The fate of O'Connor's wife and Toretto's sister Mia (played by Jordana Brewster), on the other hand, still remains in the balance because of Walker's absence. In the last movie, she told her husband that they are expecting another child.
