The Fast and Furious family feud seems to not end anytime soon. With a Fast and Furious Luke Hobbsâ spin-off starring Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham that led The Rock to push Fast and Furious 9 – the ninth film of the successful franchise by a year. The feud that had once started off with comments from Johnson about his F&F family claiming them to be âcandy assesâ has now become direct and public with Tyrese Gibson taking digs at Johnson by calling him a âclownâ and blaming him squarely for the delay in the ninth filmâs release. Vin Diesel too subtly but firmly talked about the feud on social media.
In a recent interview with TMZ, Gibson further called Johnson âselfishâ to have entertained the spin-off over the 16-year-olf Fast and Furious teamâs association.
“I don’t know what they’re doing. Everybody’s coming at me, like I’m hating on Dwayne for his spin-off. I’m not. I just wish he was releasing it at a different time. It’s not a conflict, but Fast & Furious is like a holiday. The Fast & The Furious family, the fans, the tribe, the people who have been rocking with us for 16 years… you know, pushing our release date back⌠it’s only happened one time in the history of The Fast & The Furious (franchise), when we lost our brother Paul Walker. So, what’s the reason we’re pushing the release date back now? I’ve just got a problem with Dwayne… it appears that he’s being selfish.â He further added, âIt appears that he’s so focused on furthering his own self-interests that he’s making decisions from the seat that he’s sitting in. Fast & the Furious 9 isn’t coming out until 2020.â
Johnson presumably as a response to the interview took to his Instagram account to post a teaser on Monday, October 9, 2017, from the spin off that is scheduled to release on July 26, 2019 while Fast and Furious 9 has been postponed from April 2019 to April 10, 2020.
Over the weekend, Diesel came up out front to speak about the feud and cool down the heat by saying, âI know there has been a lot of speculation as to why the Fast 9 release date was pushed… but it would be unfair to say it is anyone’s fault. â¨As we plot the course to expand the Fast & Furious universe, one must be mindful to take stock of the roads we took to get here. The pillars of authenticity, family and most importantly, our loyal fan’s perspective has been instrumental in procuring success.” He also added that the film franchise needs some âmaintenanceâ and also thanked Universal studiosâ head, Ron Meyer for giving him more time to think through the future of the franchise.
Diesel has also clarified that the âbrotherhoodâ between him and Jonshon has been complicated and seems to have refuted Gibsonâs idea that The Rock has betrayed the Fast and Furious family and is completely responsible for the ninth movie release date to be postponed by a year.
Photo Credits: Instagram pages of Dwayne Johnson and Tyrese Gibson