Furious 7
Furious 7 (also known as Fast & Furious 7 or Wild Speed: Sky Mission in Japan[4]) is a 2015 action film directed by James Wan and written by Chris Morgan. It is the sequel to Fast & Furious 6 (2013) and The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006), and the seventh installment in the Fast & Furious franchise. The film stars an ensemble cast including Vin Diesel, Paul Walker (in his final film role), Dwayne Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, Jordana Brewster, Djimon Hounsou, Tony Jaa, Ronda Rousey, Nathalie Emmanuel, Kurt Russell, and Jason Statham. In the film, Dominic Toretto (Diesel), Brian O'Conner (Walker), and their team are recruited by covert ops leader Mr. Nobody (Russell) to prevent terrorist Mose Jakande (Hounsou) from obtaining a hacking program. Meanwhile, Deckard Shaw (Statham), a former special forces soldier seeking to avenge his comatose younger brother, puts the team in danger once again.
Furious 7
- Neal H. Moritz
- Vin Diesel
- Michael Fottrell
- Stephen F. Windon
- Marc Spicer
- Christian Wagner
- Dylan Highsmith
- Kirk Morri
- Leigh Folsom Boyd
- April 1, 2015 (TCL Chinese Theatre)
- April 3, 2015 (United States)
137 minutes[2]
United States
China
English
$190 million[3]
$1.515 billion[3]
Plans for a seventh installment were first announced in February 2012 when Johnson stated that production on the film would begin after the completion of Fast & Furious 6. In April 2013, Wan, predominantly known for horror films, was announced to direct the film. Casting showed the returns of Diesel and Walker that same month. Principal photography began that September in Atlanta, but was indefinitely suspended in November after Walker died in a car crash; filming resumed in April 2014 and ended in July, with Walker's brothers Caleb and Cody standing-in to complete his remaining scenes, causing delay to its 2015 release date, with other filming locations including Los Angeles, Colorado, Abu Dhabi, and Tokyo. Brian Tyler, who had last composed the score for Fast Five (2011), returned to compose the seventh installment. With an estimated production budget of up to $250 million, it is one of the most expensive films ever made.
Furious 7 premiered at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles on April 1, 2015, and was released in the United States on April 3, by Universal Pictures. The film was a box office success and it received positive reviews from critics for its action sequences and emotional tribute to Walker, with many considering it to be one of the best films in the franchise. It grossed over $1.5 billion worldwide, making it the third-highest-grossing film of 2015 and the fourth-highest-grossing film of all time at the time of release. It also set a record for the second-highest opening weekend of its time, grossing $397.6 million worldwide. It was the highest-grossing film of 2015 internationally and became the highest-grossing film of the franchise in the first twelve days of its theatrical release. A sequel, The Fate of the Furious, was released in April 2017.
Plot[edit]
After defeating Owen Shaw and securing pardons for their past crimes,[a] Dominic Toretto, Brian O'Conner and the team have returned to the US to live normal lives. Dom tries to help Letty Ortiz regain her memory, while Brian accustoms himself to life as a father.
Meanwhile, Owen's older brother, Deckard Shaw, breaks into the hospital where the comatose Owen is held in London and vows to take revenge. Deckard breaks into the DSS field office in Los Angeles to extract profiles of Dom's crew, and fights DSS Agent Luke Hobbs before he escapes, detonating a bomb that severely injures Hobbs. Dom later learns from his sister, Mia, that she is pregnant again and convinces her to tell Brian. However, a letter bomb sent by Deckard, who has apparently killed Han Lue in Tokyo,[a] explodes and destroys the Toretto house.
Dom meets Hobbs and learns about Deckard before he travels to Tokyo to retrieve Han's body and acquires the objects found at the crash site from Sean Boswell.[b] As Dom, Brian, Tej Parker, and Roman Pearce mourn Han and Gisele Yashar at Han's funeral in Los Angeles, Dom spots Deckard spying on them and confronts him in an underground tunnel, but Deckard flees when a covert ops team, led by government agent Mr. Nobody, arrives and opens fire. Mr. Nobody tells Dom that he will help them in stopping Deckard if he helps him retrieve God's Eye, a computer program capable of tracking a specific individual using anything on a digital network, and save its creator Ramsey from Nigerian terrorist Mose Jakande.
The team airdrops their off-road modified cars over the Caucasus Mountains in Azerbaijan, ambush Jakande's convoy, and rescue Ramsey. They leave for the Etihad Towers in Abu Dhabi and steal the flash drive containing the God's Eye chip from a billionaire hidden in a Lykan HyperSport. With God's Eye secure, Dom, Brian, Nobody, and his team use it to hunt Deckard down to an abandoned factory but are ambushed by Jakande and his henchmen, who have allied with Deckard, and are forced to flee while Jakande obtains God's Eye.
As Mr. Nobody is medically extracted, the team returns to Los Angeles where Dom plans to fight Deckard alone, while Letty, Brian, Tej, and Roman resolve to protect Ramsey from Jakande. Later, Brian promises Mia that he will fully dedicate himself to their family after he defeats Deckard and Jakande, and is motivated to come home after Mia reveals her pregnancy. As Jakande pursues Brian and the rest of the team with a stealth helicopter and an aerial drone, Ramsey attempts to hack into God's Eye. Discovering the situation, Hobbs leaves the hospital and destroys the drone with an ambulance.
After battling and killing Jakande's henchman Kiet, Brian hijacks a signal repeater tower that allows Ramsey to regain control of God's Eye and shut it down. An enraged Jakande is forced to turn around, as the military is closing in on the helicopter's location. As the helicopter flees, Jakande spots Dom and Deckard engage in a brawl on top of a public parking garage. Intervening, he attacks them both; Dom uses the distraction to defeat Deckard by causing part of the parking garage to collapse beneath him. Dom attempts to crash his Dodge Charger onto Jakande's helicopter; he leaves a bag of grenades on the helicopter and crashes on the rubble of the garage. Hobbs shoots the grenades, destroying the helicopter and killing Jakande.
After Brian and Hobbs help Letty bring out Dom's unconscious body, she cradles him and tells him that she has fully regained her memories and has remembered their wedding, after which Dom regains consciousness. Deckard is arrested by Hobbs and the CIA, being locked up in a black site prison. The rest of the team relaxes on a tropical beach. Brian and Mia play with their son Jack while Dom, Letty, Roman, Tej, and Ramsey look on, acknowledging that Brian is happily retired with his family. Dom drives away and Brian catches up with him. As Dom recalls his memories with Brian, they bid each other farewell and drive off in separate directions.
John Brotherton portrays Sheppard, Mr. Nobody's right-hand man.[5][11][12][13] Sung Kang and Gal Gadot appear in archive footage as Han Lue and Gisele Yashar. Lucas Black reprises his role as Sean Boswell, an American street racer who lives in Tokyo whom Dom meets when he travels to Tokyo to claim the body of Han, a mutual friend of theirs killed by Shaw. In September, it was confirmed that Black had signed on to reprise his role as Boswell for Furious 7 and two more installments.[14][15] Elsa Pataky reprises her role as Elena Neves, a DSS agent and former Rio police officer who moved to the United States to become Hobbs' new partner at the DSS.[5] Luke Evans briefly reprises his role as Owen Shaw, Deckard's now comatose younger brother, from Fast & Furious 6 (2013), and Noel Gugliemi reprises his role as Hector for a cameo appearance from The Fast and the Furious (2001).[16]
Ali Fazal portrays Safar, a friend of Ramsey to whom she sent the God's Eye for safekeeping. Fazal described his role as a cameo.[17] Australian rapper Iggy Azalea (who also appears on the soundtrack) makes a cameo appearance as a racer at Race Wars.[18][19][20] American singer/rapper T-Pain appears as himself as he DJs a party in Abu Dhabi.[21][22] Romeo Santos makes a cameo appearance as Mando, who shelters Mia in the Dominican Republic and Klement Tinaj appears as one of the Race Wars racers.[23]
Production[edit]
Development[edit]
On October 21, 2011, the Los Angeles Times reported that Universal Studios was considering filming two sequels—Fast Six and Fast Seven—back-to-back with a single storyline running through both films. Both would be written by Chris Morgan and directed by Justin Lin, who had been the franchise's writer and director, respectively, since The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006).[24] On December 20, 2011, following the release of Fast Five (2011), Vin Diesel stated that Fast Six would be split into two parts, with writing for the two films occurring simultaneously. On the decision, Diesel said:[25]
Release[edit]
Theatrical[edit]
The film originally scheduled to be released on July 11, 2014,[29] but the film was put on hold following Paul Walker's death in November 2013.[47] In October 2014, Universal revealed that the film was officially titled Furious 7. Leading up to the event, seven-second behind-the-scenes videos were released, titled "7 Seconds of 7".[77]
The film was next scheduled for release on April 10, 2015,[49] but it was announced that the film's release date had been brought forward a week to April 3.[78] The official announcement in change of date was made in July 2014.[78] Furious 7 premiered at the SXSW Film Festival at 12:07 a.m. at Austin's Paramount Theatre on March 16, 2015.[79] For its global premiere at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles on April 1, IMAX Corporation installed a new laser projection which was the first such installation in the U.S. and the second worldwide, following The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014), which opened at Scotiabank Theatre in Toronto in December 2014.[80]
Home media[edit]
Furious 7 was released on July 6, 2015, in the UK and was released via DVD and Blu-ray on September 15 in other countries. The Blu-ray edition features an all-new extended edition of 140 minutes long,[81] deleted scenes, stunts, behind-the-scenes, and the music video for Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth's "See You Again". The Blu-ray and DVD versions include behind-the-scenes footage of the "Race Wars" scene including rapper Iggy Azalea and the making of the cars featured in the film.[82] In the U.S. and Canada, it sold roughly 2.5 million units on Blu-ray and DVD in its first week of release, making it the highest-selling home entertainment live-action film of 2015.[83] This record was later surpassed by Jurassic World (2015) the following month.[84] Furious 7's home video sales made a revenue of $66.4 million with 4.2 million copies sold, making it the seventh best-selling title of 2015.[85]
Reception[edit]
Box office[edit]
Furious 7 grossed $353 million in the United States and Canada and $1.163 billion in other countries, for a worldwide total of $1.516 billion, against a production budget of $190–250 million.[3][86] It was the third-highest-grossing film of 2015 and the fourth-highest-grossing film of all time.[87][88] Furious 7 was also the fastest film to reach the $1 billion mark at the time, doing so in 17 days.[89][90][91] It also became the first film to pass $1 million in 4DX admissions worldwide.[92] Deadline Hollywood calculated the film's net profit as $354 million, accounting for production budgets, marketing, talent participations, and other costs; box office grosses and home media revenues placed it fifth on their list of "Most Valuable Blockbusters".[86]
Worldwide, Furious 7 was released across 810 IMAX theaters, which was the largest worldwide rollout in IMAX's history,[93][94] Its worldwide opening of $397.6 million was the second-highest opening of all time.[95][96] The film had an IMAX opening weekend total of $20.8 million.[97]