'Hobbs & Shaw': Furious & rival team-up
- By Zhang Rui
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E-mail China.org.cn, September 9, 2019
He also revealed a funny behind the scenes story. "Dwayne gets motion sickness; he doesn't like to go fast. Anything about thirty miles an hour, we have to get the stunt man. That's why he drives big slow trucks, and Deckard Shaw has a sports car that goes really quick."
"Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw" had raced past 1.32 billion yuan ($185.71 million) at China's box offices by Sunday since its release on Aug. 23, giving China's summer film season a strong ending and making it the third-biggest imported film of the year, according to China's ticketing platform Maoyan. It raked in $719.75 million in total as of Sunday worldwide, according to BoxOfficeMojo.com, with China as the biggest contributor.
"We have to say the response that we get from the fans here is so loving and sweet and supportive. It's like nowhere else in the world. And we're very, very thankful," scriptwriter and producer Chris Morgan said to China.org.cn, toying the idea of doing a giant portion or even the entire movie here in China for future installments. He wrote eight installments of "The Fast and the Furious" franchise and is its longtime narrative architect.
China's love for "The Fast and the Furious" franchise is outpouring and phenomenal. Notably, "The Fate of the Furious" (2017) earned 2.67 billion yuan ($393 million) while "Furious 7" (2015) grossed 2.43 billion yuan ($390 million) in the world's second-largest film market. They are also the second- and third-largest grossing imported films ever in China, just behind this year's new box office topper "Avengers: Endgame."
The stand-alone film was planned by Morgan for a long time, but initially, the plan was to explore a spin-off Hobbs film. "We've been talking about how to expand 'The Fast and the Furious' universe, and how to do more stories with Hobbs, learn more about him," Morgan said.
Morgan had worked with Johnson and Hiram Garcia, president of Johnson's Seven Bucks Productions, on the franchise's films in which Hobbs was featured, to flesh out his character development. More often than not, the trio would end up laughing their way through those sessions as they came up with more signature Hobbs phrases and verbal smackdowns.
When they were looking for a director, they headhunted David Leitch. Morgan said Leitch is their perfect choice as they are all fans of "Deadpool 2," "Atomic Blonde" and particularly "John Wick." He stressed, "because he does something that very, very few people can do, he does amazing. He's probably one of the best hand-to-hand choreographers and stuntmen. So, we were able to make sure that this movie feels like a 'Fast and Furious' film, but it also has its own distinct flavor that David brought to it and makes it a lot of fun."
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