The Fast & Furious saga is getting ready for one last ride.
Vin Diesel has revealed that Fast Forever, the upcoming final chapter in the main Fast & Furious film series, is expected to begin filming in December 2026, putting the long-awaited sequel to Fast X on the road toward its March 17, 2028 theatrical release.
Diesel shared the production update during a 25th-anniversary screening of 2001’s The Fast and the Furious in Los Angeles, bringing the franchise back to the same theater where the original film premiered a quarter-century ago.
“We start shooting in December,” Diesel told Variety while discussing the long road toward getting the finale in front of cameras.
The December start would mark a major milestone for a movie that has spent years in development following the release of Fast X in 2023.
Vin Diesel Says Fast Forever Took Four Years to Get Right
According to Diesel, developing Fast Forever has taken approximately four years and involved four different sets of writers as the filmmakers worked to find the right way to conclude the saga.
The latest screenplay comes from Michael Lesslie, whose credits include The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes and Now You See Me: Now You Don’t.
Diesel has been particularly enthusiastic about Lesslie’s take on the finale, recently describing the screenplay as one of the best he has read in decades and saying its emotional impact brought him to tears.
That enthusiasm carries additional weight considering what Fast Forever is being asked to accomplish.
Rather than simply setting up another adventure for Dominic Toretto and his family, the movie is intended to bring the main saga that began with The Fast and the Furious in 2001 to a conclusion.
Fast Forever Will Finish the Story Left Hanging by Fast X
Fast Forever also has some immediate unfinished business.
Fast X ended with Dominic Toretto (Diesel) and his son Little B trapped at the bottom of a dam as Dante Reyes (Jason Momoa) prepared to destroy it with explosives.
Elsewhere, Roman (Tyrese Gibson), Tej (Ludacris), Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel) and Han (Sung Kang) appeared to be aboard a plane that was shot down, leaving several major characters’ fates unresolved.
The movie then delivered another surprise with the return of Gisele Yashar (Gal Gadot), while the post-credits sequence brought Dwayne Johnson back as Luke Hobbs.
Those cliffhangers have now been hanging over the franchise for more than three years.
Fast Forever will finally have to resolve them.
The Finale Is Returning to Los Angeles
Diesel has previously emphasized that the final movie will bring the franchise back to Los Angeles and reconnect with some of the street-racing roots that defined the original film.
That makes the location of this week’s 25th-anniversary celebration particularly fitting.
The franchise began with Dom, Brian O’Conner and a comparatively small group of street racers in Los Angeles before expanding into a globe-spanning action franchise filled with international espionage, massive heists and increasingly elaborate stunts.
Bringing the story back toward Los Angeles for its conclusion creates an opportunity for Fast Forever to close that circle.
Diesel has also continued to emphasize the importance of Paul Walker to whatever form the final chapter takes.
Paul Walker Remains at the Heart of the Finale
The anniversary event carried additional emotional significance because Diesel used the occasion to reflect on his late friend and co-star Paul Walker.
Walker played Brian O’Conner beginning with the original The Fast and the Furious and remained one of the franchise’s central characters until his death in 2013.
Diesel spoke about arriving at the original movie’s premiere alongside Walker and reflected on the friendship and family that grew out of a movie few involved could have imagined would still be continuing 25 years later.
Walker’s daughter Meadow Walker was also present for the anniversary celebration.
Diesel has previously indicated that Brian O’Conner will somehow factor into the franchise’s ending, although exactly how the filmmakers intend to handle the character has not been revealed.
Whatever form that takes, Fast Forever increasingly sounds as though it is being approached not simply as another giant action movie, but as a farewell to the characters and relationships that have defined the series.
Louis Leterrier Returns After Fast X
Louis Leterrier, who stepped in to direct Fast X following Justin Lin’s departure from that film, is attached to return for Fast Forever.
Interestingly, Leterrier recently acknowledged that he had not yet read the latest version of the screenplay that received such an emotional reaction from Diesel.
That provides some useful perspective on where the production actually stands.
December may now be the target for principal photography, but there is still considerable work to be done before cameras roll.
After years of shifting plans, writers and release targets, however, Fast Forever finally appears to have both a screenplay Diesel believes in and a production timetable.
When Does Fast Forever Come Out?
Universal Pictures has scheduled Fast Forever to open in theaters on March 17, 2028.
That means the planned December 2026 production start would give the filmmakers well over a year to complete filming, visual effects and post-production before the movie reaches theaters.
The film will arrive nearly five years after Fast X, easily making this one of the longest waits between consecutive installments in the main Fast & Furious series.
For a franchise built around going faster, the final chapter has taken an unusually long road to the starting line.
But after four years of development, multiple iterations of the screenplay and considerable uncertainty about when production would actually begin, Dom and the family finally appear ready to get back behind the wheel.
And this time, they’re driving toward the finish line.
Thomas Miller is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Seat42F, covering television, movies and streaming entertainment. He launched Seat42F in 2007 and has spent nearly two decades covering the entertainment industry.
