The Bill Simmons Podcast - The MVP Winner With Joe House and the History of the 'Fast & Furious' With Neal Moritz (Ep. 199)

Episode Date: April 12, 2017

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons brings on Joe House to definitively determine who deserves the NBA's highest honor (5:00), redraft the supporting casts of the Rockets and Thunder (8:00), and decide the "winner" of each NBA season since 2000 (13:00). Then, film producer Neal Moritz joins (28:15) to discuss the origin story of Vin Diesel's "Dom Toretto" (32:00), his bias against CGI shots (42:00), Paul Walker's untimely death (48:00), the Rock's intro to the franchise (54:00), the new trilogy of 'Fast' films (59:30), the biggest flaw in each 'Fast' film (1:06:00), producing 'Cruel Intentions' (1:17:00), working with Tupac on 'Juice' (1:20:00), and the best signs for box-office success (1:28:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's good. We got a lot of Ringer people and a whole bunch of other people that have been coming on there in the playoffs. We're going to ratchet it up. I am going on there later this week to break down the NBA playoffs with Chris Vernon. So if you want to hear me on a podcast talk about the NBA playoffs, it's going to happen on the Ringer NBA show and not the BS podcast. Just trust me.

Just go over there. It'll be good. I'll have a lot of thoughts. I'll have some gambling and not the BS podcast. Just trust me. Just go over there. It'll be good. I'll have a lot of thoughts. I'll have some gambling tips, the whole thing. Ringer NBA show. Download, subscribe, do the thing. It's available wherever you get your podcasts. Coming up, we have Joe House quickly to just,

it's Tuesday night when we're taping this and I wanted to go over the MVP one more time with him. He's my sounding board. He goes in the muse cage with me and we bounce stuff off each other. we're taping this and I wanted to go over the MVP one more time with him. He's my sounding board. He's he goes in the muse cage with me and we bounce stuff off each other. And then coming up after house, we have Neil Moritz who was the producer from day one on the fast and the furious franchise. He's the only one left other than I think the costume designer,

but we go over the history of the franchise, everything that worked, everything that didn't work. A lot of the stories about behind the scenes. And if you like the movies, I would highly recommend listening to this. If you love the movies, I will never forgive you if you don't listen to this. But Fast 8 is coming out on Friday. And this is a worthy director's commentary on the entire series, even though he's the head producer, not the director.

But anyway, coming up, Joe house, Neil Morris, but first Pearl jam. All right. I want to call Joe House. It's Tuesday night, East Coast time, and it's like 4.30 on the West Coast. Russell Westbrook is not playing tonight, so I don't have to worry about him dropping a 65, 22, and 28 to screw up my MVP decision.

I'm still undecided, House. I've still not decided on my MVP. I have a column due this week. I have a ballot due. And I have not decided. All these other media members are coming out with their picks and stuff. And I want to see more.

I almost need like a 95-game season. You were convinced when we talked the last time on the podcast that Harden was the MVP. Have you changed your mind? I have not. I'm even more convinced now. And in fact, I feel a tweet storm brewing. I have some thoughts I need to get out.

I'm not sure the right way. In addition to speaking with you, which is obviously always a pleasure, I need to get all of my thoughts out on this topic. The basic premise from which I'm coming from on this MVP decision is if you're a person who subscribes to what I'll call NBA values, then it is a perversion of NBA values to reward Russell Westbrook with the MVP award for this season. If you vote for Russell Westbrook for MVP, that makes you a hoops pervert. A hoops pervert? And the reason I say that, a hoops pervert, the reason I say that is because we have established certain parameters for what it means to be an MVP in this league,

and Russell Westbrook does not reach any of the lofty standards that have been developed, tried and true measures for assessing outstanding performance. Now, having said all those things, Russell Westbrook won this season. He made the regular season great again. He achieved an outstanding level of performance. He deserves all of the plaudits and the laudations and every single celebration that people want to so clearly heap upon him. He deserves it.

He said, I'm going to go kick ass this season, and then he did it. And he showed up for every single game except for this game tonight, which he's certainly entitled to take a break at this point in the season. But here's the thing. I don't know if you saw any of this game in Phoenix. I watched the game in Phoenix. I watched nearly the entire thing. He shot six for 25 from the field. And the perversion that I'm speaking of is the fans in Phoenix

booing their own team for denying Westbrook achieving his triple-double. Now, when we have that kind of reaction to, I'm a great player out there competing and a home team, our values are askew. Something is amiss. And that confirmed to me, that performance confirmed to me, that while he deserves all the credit in the world for the wonderful achievements of the regular season,

he is not an NBA MVP. LeBron looks like he's only going to win 50 games. Is that enough? No. Wait a second. LeBron's a whole different case and a whole different story, and wins is not the measure for LeBron. I want to know what your threshold is for wins.

Let's start there. What's the lowest amount of wins you would accept in an MVP season with worthy candidates? 50. 50. 50. For sure. Yeah.

I have to have 50 wins to start the conversation. And on top of that, you tweeted this earlier. How much did the team exceed what it was expected to do at the beginning of this season? I thought that was a very astute observation you put out there. I was going to give it a million likes. I still may do it on the Twitter about how much greater Houston outperformed their expected win total this season compared to Oklahoma City. Oklahoma City is exactly where they were forecast to be, maybe a half game better. Houston's like 13 or 14 games better. Right. Houston was 41.5. OKC was 45.5.

Now, Vegas is wrong every once in a while with over-unders. They were wrong with Minnesota. There were some other ones that they got wrong. The reason I tweeted that out was because there's this perception now that Harden has a better supporting cast when it's actually, I would argue that if you're going to draft the players from both teams, you know, just like, I don't know, snake fashion or whatever, if both teams could start over, I think three of the four draft picks that go first would be from OKC. I think it would go Adams. All right, let's do it.

Who's your first pick? You got Russell Westbrook and James Harden are splitting sides. They're playing pickup. Okay. And we're the captains. I'm giving you the first pick. Who do you take? Steven Adams.

Okay. I think the second pick is Victor Oladipo, who's been kind of quietly pretty good this season. If you look at his stats and the eye test and everything, I think he'd have to be the second pick. Who's the third pick? I'm very interested at some point in talking more about Oladipo and the effect of Russell's usage this season

on Oladipo's development and what Oladipo may ultimately become for Oklahoma City. Another topic for another conversation. Very interesting to me. I understand Oladipo is the next pick. That makes perfect sense to me. I think I would take, huh, I don't know.

This is hard. It's probably Patrick Beverly, right? I'm not enamored of anybody. And the reason is because you're not building anywhere in a draft with Eric Gordon or Anderson. Patrick Beverly is an effective role player. I'm not even sure what the answer is. Right. So now it's like after those first two,

now you're in the Patrick Beverly, Eric Gordon, Capella. Lou Williams. Lou Williams. He's probably a little further down the uh enos canter for some low post scoring the point is like it's pretty even and if anything i would say adams is by by far the first pick i mean that guy's a good center and oladipo from a ceiling standpoint, I think is probably higher than anyone on Houston. But Houston's team fits Harden better. They made a specific point of going out there and getting

the type of guys that kind of would mesh with them, whereas Westbrook's more of a one-man show. And even the Taj Gibson trade, they just wanted to get him rebounders. Bring another rebounder defender guy in there. They're kind of following the 0-1 Sixers model, which I appreciate. The whole reason I'm bringing this up is I think Houston was expected to be a 41-win team. We didn't expect that. I think they were expected to be a fringe playoff team. People were dubious of

Mike D'Antoni. Eric Gordon, Ryan Anderson hadn't really been able to stay healthy the last couple years. There's no indication that this team was going to be a top three team in the West. You and I both love them. Yeah, we like them. Yeah, you and I both like them because we thought taking Dwight off Houston was going to really help Harden and Harden to see Blue Board dedicated this year. More shooting.

And we like the stuff we read in the preseason about how they were going to unleash him. But, you know, they're going to exceed what everybody thought by 14 to 15 wins. And to me, that matters. But on the other hand, it also matters that OKC lost a rant and went from 55 wins to 46 or 47 wins. That matters too.

Westbrook gets credit for that. I even think he gets credit for the fact that their over-under was 45 and a half because people were so convinced that Westbrook was going to go off this season that they bumped the over-under up and we still bet it. We bet the OKC over. We both like that. Totally agree.

Yeah, we were in. Totally agree. It's a testament to Russell and his force of will. I mean, you know, he wins the season. When we think back 10 years from now, when you look back at the 2016-2017 season, who won the season? It's going to be Russell. Everybody will say he went on this

absolute... He was an assassin. It was a terror watch. I mean, I don't... Night in, night out. And that doesn't happen all the time. But it does happen, and you could go back,

like if we just go back this century, right? I can do this off the top of my head. 2000, Shaq won the season. Remember? That was like Phil Jackson showed up, Shaq had his monster year, they ended up winning the title. 01, Iverson won the season.

And it was like, oh my God, Iverson, how are they doing this?on won the season. It was like, oh, my God, Iverson. How are they? How are they doing this? They make the finals. Oh, to the Sacramento Kings won the season. Yeah. Right. Yeah, for sure.

Oh, three. Duncan won the season and the title. Oh, four. Nobody really won the season. And then the Pistons kind of just won it late and came on and they won the title. Oh, five. The Artest Melee won the season and then the Pistons kind of just won it late and came on and they won the title. 05, the Artest Melee won the season. Oh no.

And Shaq going to Miami. I voted for Shaq that year. 06, Kobe won the season. Actually, you know what? 05, Nash and the Suns won that season. I take that back. Shaq, Miami. There was some good stuff. Which I'm still not totally on board with. I have Nash and the Suns won that season. I take that back. Shaq, Miami. There was some good stuff. That was his MVP, wasn't it?

Yeah, which I'm still not totally on board with. But yeah, there were good storylines there. 06, Kobe. 07, there was nothing. That was the year I wrote the column where I voted for the fans for the MVP because I thought we deserved it because we had to sit through the shittiest season of all time. 08, Kobe won the mvp i still feel like that was the wrong year he won i thought he should have won in 06 i thought kj or chris paul should have won in 08 a lot of people won that season 09 lebron that was the year

lebron just kicked everyone's ass same thing in 2010 and the decision was looming he kind of won that season 2011 Derek Rose versus Miami with Wade and LeBron together I would say those were the two things that won 2012 LeBron unbelievable same thing in 13 Durant wins 2014 Curry and the Warriors in 15 and 16 and then this year Westbrook wins. Now, what's interesting is most of the time, the guy who won the season also won the MVP, and that's one of my four categories for trying to pick the MVP. Who won the season? Who did it belong to?

Clearly, Westbrook won the season. So why doesn't that make him the MVP? Because we have standards for the MVP. If you go back through those years, in many of the years, the guy, there's at least four seasons where the guy that we think won the season

didn't win the MVP. Yeah. Well, and also, the thing I keep coming back to is he didn't really make anyone better on his team. And yet, that's the Oladipo point. I want to ponder a little bit. And Adams, too.

I still feel like there's more with Adams. Adams is like the Westbrook henchman, basically. I feel like there's more in there. There's more lurking. There's a better offensive player. I just like him. I like his game. I wanted to see more.

Kevin O'Connor surmised on uh on the ringer NBA show today like that if Westbrook's chance to win if he wanted to win a title would be to play off the ball more and you know not monopolize it as much it'll make a little more dangerous and make their offense a little more predictable the team's down a lot they always seem to be down 15 or 20 they rally back half the time and I thought that was an interesting point too i don't if you're trying to win a title like i wrote a month ago you you can't win the title with somebody who has the ball this much trying to do this much but if you're trying to average a triple double for the season or win the mvp with individual stats it's the move and that's

obviously what he decided and and we've observed this before. I give OKC a lot of credit. They recognized that this was a transition year, and they did an unprecedented thing. Like, everybody in that organization had to be all in with the idea of this usage rate with Westbrook. An unprecedented amount of time. He has the ball, possesses the ball, takes shots, gives out assists. That's cool. I totally support that.

It made the regular season fantastic. It was absolutely the best thing for the franchise to do in this transition season. It made such a great mark, such a great response to KD leaving. And it was a wonderful story to watch all year long. And goodness Christ, he averaged a triple-double. It was effing unbelievable. But he ain't the MVP.

So your MVP's still Harden? Yes. Yes. All the efficiency numbers favor Harden. The wins favor Harden. His teammates being better favor Harden. Does teammates being better favor Harden. Does it bother you? Harden validated DeAntoni.

He validated Maury. Does it bother you that the players seem to think that Westbrook's the MVP? I don't know. Not one bit. I don't trust the players' judgment on anything. Have you seen their Instagram? You know whose judgment I do trust? Yours with food.

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They should let you plan one of the four meals in May because nobody loves hearing what the meals are more than Joe House. Come on, Blue Apron. I would gladly participate in that. What Blue Apron meal would you suggest for them? What would be your dream Blue Apron. I would gladly participate in that. What Blue Apron meal would you suggest for them? What would be your dream Blue Apron meal?

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Blue Apron, a better way to cook. All right, back to the MVP. I'm writing LeBron off. I think he's going to be in my four spot. That's the only thing I know for sure right now. I do not like how the Cavs ended the season. The back-to-back losses to the Hawks. It's just horrible.

Make me furious. How the F does a team with LeBron and Kyrie only win 50 games? How does that happen? I can't get past they gave up 44 points in the fourth quarter

to the Hawks on Sunday night. 44 points in the fourth quarter. I can't get over that. So you're with me with LeBron in the fourth spot? Yeah, you can't put him any higher than that. Yeah.

It would have been better for him to have not played these last 10 games than to play and have the Cavs with this extraordinarily spotty effort. It's just an effort thing it seems with them. I mean, I'm starting to think about Curry in the fourth spot. I won't do it, but I did have the thought. I mean, I'm starting to think about Curry in the fourth spot.

I won't do it, but I did have the thought. I did sneak a peek at Curry. Yeah, that team's going to win like 67 games. LeBron's first 45, 50 games are on. I know, I know. I know. Well, let's agree on this. If Westbrook doesn't win, it's the most fun storyline for next season. It's the only way we could make him angrier

and fill him with even more hate and just the intensity and relentlessness, I think, is to deny him the MVP. Let's see if he can go to high. Let's see if he can do 35, 15, and 15 every game. I'm on board. Let's see if his usage rate can get to 50%. Let's deny Russell Westbrook the MVP.

It's better for basketball. I think if we give him the MVP, it makes him soft. He's never the same. He's never as angry. He feels like he proved what he needed to prove. The whole thing. No, I don't know. I'm going to think about it the next 24 hours.

And, man, that Sunday really shook me. On Sunday, I decided I was going with Harden. And then the Denver game shook me. And I was like, man, am I really going to – am I going to hate myself in 10 years because I didn't vote for Westbrook? That's where I am. Yeah, but think about – you made this point earlier. And this is the thing that really, to me, hampers the case.

They've been making massive comebacks against crappy teams all season long. Like a lot of those game-tying threes that he's made or the push at the end, he scored 13 points with no response at all out of Denver. Now, part of the thing for OKC, they deserve credit. Great team defense all season long. And notwithstanding the fact that Russell's own individual defensive stats have not been great, great team defense for OKC. Did you see that stat?

So that factors in. 538 had a stat about it was something like amount of times he ran out on somebody. And it was like the lowest in the league for contested times he's contested a shot it was like 3.8 a game or something it's basically like it's basically where i was in my last two years playing pickup basketball was i was russell russell contending shot contesting shots that wasn't good but he he's expending so much energy on the offensive end i mean you know he's not superhuman.

But the thing about that Denver game, that comeback, the same is true of Phoenix. They were out of that game. I mean, they just, you know, they're not competitive against, you know, crappy teams. They don't have a very good record against good teams. Too often not competitive against crappy teams. Yeah. I would argue if they end up at 46 and 36,

to me that's a disappointment. I thought, I bet on them to win the division. I looked at the wagers that we may or may not have made, and I bet on them plus 285 to win the division. I thought they were the best team in that division. Utah's going to beat them by four games. Not positive that makes sense to me either. How could they not,

how could they not get to 50 wins with Westbrook's MVP season? It doesn't make sense. Nobody got, Cantor got hurt for 20 games, but other than that, you know, they add Taj during the middle of the season. They add McDermott, who is a better outside shooter than really anybody they had. It doesn't really make sense to me. I thought they could have been a tiny bit better. I don't know if the MVP should be making me say to myself, why wasn't that team better? Whereas Houston, I'm like, that team won. They are who they are.

The Houston won in their mid-50s, and it's like, wow, that's pretty good. That's Mike D'Antoni. Anyway, all right, House. I'll text you. I'll let you know what I decide. Quickly, on the Masters, because I know you. I'll let you know what I decide quickly on the, on the, on the masters. Cause I know you,

you broke down all of it on shack house, but we should point out that you recommended wagers. You, you recommended a few different golfers, but your big bets, two of them were Sergio Garcia and Justin Rose who do it on the last round. So I was proud of you. That was great.

Yeah. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. You know, I, I do give out recommendations for a whole number of, of golfers in different, um,

kinds of, of bets in different increments. Right. But that's because it's effing golf. I mean, it's impossible to pick the winner. You have to like have a feel for a few different guys. And then you don't,

you never know which guy is in a fight with his girlfriend and which guy had a bad zucchini salad the night before. I mean, I can't factor all that stuff in. Or who fell down the stairs. What about who fell down the stairs? Well, fortunately, I did not have any... I hadn't made any

wagers by the time that occurred. I mean, you know, that was a very... The old fall down the stairs. Hmm. The conspiracy theorists are out. I mean, I'm not perpetuating any of these conspiracies. I'm not

responsible for it. It made me blanch. This was very curious that Jimmy Walker and Dustin Jackson were paired together, and then they didn't end up playing together. That's the only thing I'm going to say about that. Anyway, that was great, though. Great Masters.

I really enjoyed watching it on my crappy Wi-Fi feed on my iPad as I watched my daughter play soccer, and I kept cutting in and out, and I finally followed it on Twitter. But I did watch it. I watched the replay. All right, we've got to go, but what's your favorite Masters hole?

Because I have a whole theory about this. My favorite Masters hole? Yeah, your favorite Masters hole. It's 15. Oh, that's mine too. 15 is my favorite Masters hole. Of course. Well, I like 15 because it also leads to 16.

So it's like I'm getting seconds right away. I'm getting all the drama of 15, but then right away the approach shot on 16. It's just a great 15 minutes. It's the best. Masters 15 and 16 is the best. Totally agree. Couldn't disagree one bit. It really sets the stage for how, you know, out of all the groups coming through,

those last six groups, the performance on 15 and 16 distinguishes who's going to, you know, follow through or not. My man, Thomas Peters, a rookie this year that I also put out there, nice six to one odds, his top debut time, he came through, he had birdied 12 through 15, and then bogeyed 16, and that derailed him. You know, he was really making a charge there. But those are the holes that always, you know, 15, 16 set the stage. Charles Schwartzel, however many years ago, five or six years ago, birdied in from 15, four straight birdies. He won the Masters that way.

So that's why 15 and 16 are so great. You are absolutely right. Alright, nice work. Listen to the Shack House pod. Download, subscribe. House, I'll let you know what I did. Thank you. Alright, fingers crossed. Make the right decision. Don't be a pervert. Before we get to the fast

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And now, the fast and the furious. All right, I'm here with Neil Moritz. Yes, sir. I wanted to say Moritz, but it's Moritz. Like St. Moritz. St Neil Moritz. Yes, sir. I wanted to say Moritz, but it's Moritz. Like St. Moritz. St. Moritz. The producer of my favorite franchise of all time. Mine too.

I want to go through your career and how you got there, but I want to start with the movie. Fast One. Yes, sir. 2001? 2001. I think I had just started ESPN. I went to see it.

I remember where I saw it. It was in Revere. I was living in Charlestown at the time. And you had to get on the highway to drive back to my house. And I got on the highway, and I drove like 130 miles an hour. Right. And was just weaving between cars. I'm sure you get that a lot.

Well, actually, the first time we ever showed that movie was out in Chatsworth in California at the same theater. We've done the kind of test screenings for every one of these movies. Yeah. And, you know, when we made this movie, we thought we were making like this really cool kind of B-genre kind of street culture movie. And we made this movie and it was really cool. And I thought it was going to be a

really cool movie but when we showed it that first time and i walked out into the parking lot after the movie's over and i saw kids in their cars just doing donuts and ripping around in their cars and kids in groups talking and screaming yelling and that's when i knew we had something uh special so i i rebelled against it a tiny bit the first time I saw it because I love Point Break. One of my favorite movies. And I was like, this is Point Break with cars. They could have just made Point Break 2 as much as I enjoyed it.

And then the more I thought about it over the next couple months, I was like, Point Break with cars, pretty good. And then it started coming on cable, and that's when I was in. Yeah, well, to me, it's Point Break know, Point Break meets Godfather in a way. Yeah. In terms of the family aspect of the themes of that. But Point Break, and those are, if somebody, you know, when I speak at a lot of, like, university film school type things,

and people ask me what my favorite movie is, it's Godfather 1 and 2. And kind of that combined with Point Break, which is another movie that I loved, that's where I would hopefully have Fast and Furious live. The sweet spot. So how did the movie get made? What happens? Whose idea is it and what's the process?

There was an article about street racing culture in New York City. And I was making another movie at the time when we saw this article and I thought it could be a great backdrop for a film. I love movies about lifestyles and about subcultures and I thought this fit perfectly within that.

Now then we had to obviously find a story that could fit within that culture and when we came up with the idea of an undercover cop going into this world, that was kind of the driving engine between this. And we had a couple scripts written, and we just thought there could possibly be a movie here. I had been working with Paul Walker on another movie, Skulls.

I gave him the script. Rob Cohen, who I had made Rat Pack with and Skulls. I gave him the script. Rob Cohen, who I had made Rat Pack with and Skulls gave him the script. The two of them liked the idea, Paul being a car head. And then we had to look for Dom Toretto. And the studio said, if you can get Timothy Oliphant

to play that role, we will green light the movie. To play Dom Toretto? Play Dom Toretto. So you had Paul Walker. You never thought about possibly going for Keanu no okay but we cave so you say it was like a money ball decision with paul walker he's still on his way up he was on his way up but i but i i loved him i had made a couple films with them i felt like he had that potential he had the obviously

the great american looks was this before varsityity Blues or after? This was after, right? Was it after or before? I cannot remember now. Varsity Blues was 99. Because I had made Skulls with him and I knew him prior to that, but it might have been after. I'm not sure.

And then, so, luckiest thing that ever happened to us is that Tim Olyphant turned us down. Wow, and he's a good actor. He's a great actor. In fact, I'm curious to see what that version of that movie would have been. It's a good what if. And then when yeah in fact i i'm curious to see what that version of that movie would have been it's a good what if and then when he turns down i said this to you know

there was this guy it's seen in this movie um i think he'd be great what movie was it um was it was it the original pitch black at the time i think and uh i went and i met him at Kate Manolini's. And he wasn't a star yet. But the great thing about Vin is he always believed he was a star. Right, his rational confidence. And I was like, I'm going in there to think that he's going to be coming to me to want the role. And I'm the one there now having to convince him to do the role. And lucky for both of us that that happened. And then we started to make the movie.

So who was plan C then? I don't think that we would have ever made the movie if he did not. Oh, wow. I don't know. That's a terrible scenario. I don't even like talking about that. When I look back, I don't know who else could have played the role. And we went off and made that movie.

And this little movie, now 17 years later, I'm sitting here on number eight. The interesting thing is somebody asked me the other day, okay, when I first started this movie, I wasn't married, didn't have kids, obviously, and now I've got a 16-year anniversary coming up and a 14-year-old and 11-year-old. So when I look at these movies,

I not only look at kind of the fact that we have eight movies but i look at it as each one of these is an incredible life experience along the way not only with my family on the movie side but on my personal was the first one a hit the first one was a huge hit came out huge hit i think the first one came out on the first weekend at the time maybe did did $35 or $38 million. I can't remember the exact number. Did the studio know it was going to be hit? I think people thought that there was something there,

but nobody envisioned that it could go on to do that kind of business. And that was at the point, I think, where the studio was going through a little bit of a lull. And this was kind of one of the bright spots. We've been lucky enough that, you know, studios have cycles of good, bad. Most of the time, luckily, Universal's been on a great roll for a long time now. But there was a point in time where we were always kind of the bright,

shining star for the studio when they weren't having that much success. But you don't have the guys locked up for a sequel. You don't have both of them. On that one? For Fast 2. No, for Fast 2, no. Because Vin no for fast two not in fast no we did not have them in fact i went off we couldn't make a deal with vin and and so we ultimately

i went with him and made triple x the first one and so you almost like cheated on the fast franchise with triple x it's weird because i would i would say that some people thought that the first triple x was the sequel to fast and furious i'm not one of those people okay well some people did and uh yes so we were doing that and then paul wanted to do it and then we brought in tyrese and that that was also a success that was definitely a success and that was now kind of underrated i feel feel like Fast 2, I feel is on the underrated side. I don't know if it was as creative a success as some of the other ones have been,

but it was definitely a financial success. And it strayed a little bit of what Fast and Furious was, but it was still a movie that I really enjoyed making and I still enjoy watching today. I think it was the emergence of Tyrese and I think that i really enjoyed making and i still enjoy watching today i think it was the emergence of tyrese and i think that relationship between tyrese and paul walker was

really good and i love the the locale of that movie shooting in miami i thought it had a really great look and then i that's where we introduced i guess ludicrous as well so there's a lot of pieces from that movie that have carried right forward so then fast three fast three was like god what are we going to do here? It was almost like, are we going to go make a direct-to-DVD movie? So you thought it was over at this point? We kind of were like, what's the impetus for us to be able to continue? And what can make it fresh?

And what can we do? And Paul Walker's out. He's like, I'm not in? Yeah, I can't remember exactly why that went down at this time, but we felt like we needed to make a cheaper version of the movie. The budget couldn't keep going up at that point, so we went off to make the Tokyo Drift version. And when we made that, we felt like we had something really cool,

and then we were able to convince Vin to come back and do the cameo at the end of three, which catapulted the franchise in a whole different direction back to where we were and allowed us to now go on this kind of stratospheric rise that we've had from four through eight. So you waited out Vin a little bit because there was a point there where it seemed like Vin was going to be this A-plus list action star. I don't know if we waited him out per se. That was something that was going on between himself and the studio. I always felt that Vin really was kind of the lifeblood of what Fast and Furious was. And I really did feel like if we were going to continue, we needed to have Vin in the movie.

And we were lucky enough to convince him why it was good for us and why it was good for him and how we could continue on if he came back. So did you know at the, you knew in the Fast 3 cameo that he's coming back for Fast 4? Well, the idea was come back, come back. We really want you back. Let's see how it goes with the anticipation of going to do a fourth based on that. And what was their reception for Fast 3?

Fast 3 was actually, it's funny, it's either people's favorite or least favorite. Favorite? Who are those people? Some people love Tokyo Drift. What? Yep, they do. What I find interesting is everybody has a different favorite. I mean, I have different favorites for different reasons.

I actually like parts of all the different movies for uh for different reasons and um but in terms of tokyo drift there are a lot of people that really like that movie it was a great title didn't have a it had a video game element that kind of carried it on right was there a video game or there was some sort of we did some kind of mobile video game kind of attached along with it i feel like it's the names around yeah cable and then also i think we did like an arcade game that was yeah that's what it was yeah it was the arcade game um but yeah what's funny is is that you know when you're in these foreign countries which i'm in a lot of time for doing press for the movies or actually for the making in the movies and you turn on the channels there is almost at no time

where you will turn on some channel where you won't see some Fast and Furious movie. It's really interesting. It transcends all languages. When we were in Cuba shooting, they couldn't legally license our movies. They don't pay us to air the movies there. But on their 50 channels that they have, there was Fast and Furious on at all times.

Right. So Fast and Furious, Fast 4, which was spectacular, what year was that? 2008 maybe? 2008 or 2009. And that's when you knew like, all right, we now have a chance to turn this into a franchise. Yeah, we kind of just felt like it kept building and my feeling was is that the only way to be able to keep going with fast and furious was to give the audience enough of what they liked in previous films but to give them something new each time out whether it was the addition of a cast whether it was a plot twist whether it was

the tag we'd have on a movie that would launch us into the next one where we find out Michelle Rodriguez is alive or whatever whatever it is that there was we always needed something that was going to be different in the next film we couldn't just do a rehash each time I think that the audience knows they're going to come they're going to see great cars they're going to see the characters that they love they know they're going to get to see uh great action sequences that you know we try and top each other each time and um but they're I think they're also feel like they're going to get to see great action sequences that we try and top each other each time. But I think they also feel like they're getting something new each time. And you lucked out. Justin Lin directed Tokyo Jester, right?

Justin Lin directed. Who's excellent. Then he does four and five. Four, five, six. And now he's directing right now for me the pilot for the television show SWAT based on the movie I did based on the television show we're doing SWAT TV show for NBC that was one of my first favorite

shows mine too and that's why I made the movie mainly because of the theme song well I love the theme song Barry Dvorzen did the theme song and so what's interesting is I'm working with Justin on that I'm working with James Wan who did number seven on something else. And then I'm sure Gary Gray and I will do another project down the line.

So Fast Four happens. And now all of a sudden it becomes clear this is like the Bond franchise for this generation, that you could just keep cranking these out. But you have to keep adding stuff. Yeah, so in Fast Five, the big addition was obviously The Rock. Fast Five is my favorite, just for The Rock. Fast Five's my favorite just for the record. Yeah, I have.

It's the most satisfying start to finish experience. Well, I think the sequence of dragging that vault through the streets. The Brazil's amazing. And I mean, I'll never forget

standing on the streets of Puerto Rico where we shot most of that action sequence and standing there and I'm like, they're actually letting us do this.

They're letting us. I mean, this wasn't like CGI fake. This was us dragging a vault behind these cars, going 80, 90 miles an hour, wrecking hundreds of cars. Yeah. It was amazing. Was that the first fast moment that you were like, wow, this is too ambitious?

Or was there one from Fast Four? I'm trying to remember. Because that was the first one for me where I remember being in the theater. How did they do this? I don't understand. We've always pushed ourselves to go as far as we can go and to try and do it as real and practical as possible.

CGI is kind of our enemy. We only really will go to CGI if we can't do it safely. If you're jumping through two buildings in Dubai. Yeah, well, it was funny, though, in the two buildings in Dubai, we actually jumped the cars, but we built on a stage in Atlanta, we built coming out of one building

and going into another building, and then we then superimposed those on these two towers that existed in Dubai. But we actually did that jump. Wow. Yeah, it was amazing. It was in the convention center in Atlanta where we took over that whole huge convention center and built the two things and uh and jumped it and who would have thought that wasn't even one of the top three most unrealistic

moments in the series exactly exactly we've had we've had we've had a lot of them we have we've i think we have i still think landing the cars from the planes on parachutes right onto the mountain at full speed can't be topped. Okay, well that, but to me, actually, the longest runway in the world is probably the one for me. Nobody realized that until they saw the movie a second time, I don't think. It was like, wait a second, how long is this runway? Some guy did like some thesis on it. Yeah, it was amazing. It was like 29 miles or something?

Yeah, I'm always so impressed by our fans who go off and do these things and do the math for us i i i love it you know it's it's just so rewarding to see that because honestly i'm a fan i'm a fan i'm a fan of the movies and a fan of movies all all together but when on the end of seven when we for the first time screened that movie out at that same theater in chatsworth and the movie ended and it was probably the most nerve-wracking night of my life because here we did this and all we wanted to do was honor who paul was and his legacy and the last thing in the world i wanted to do was let him or the audience down and i'm standing there after the screening had ended and the screening went incredible,

but I'm standing in the lobby waiting for the fans to fill out the cards for us to get our score and see how we did. And I'm standing there in the corner and these four young kids come up to me, 17, 18-year-old kids, and they come up to me and say, thank you so much.

I'm like, what do you mean? They're like, you don't understand. We needed that to get through our grieving of Paul Hunt. I'm like, what do you mean? They're like, you don't understand. Like we needed that to get through our grieving of Paul. And I was like, wow, I thought we were doing that for us. I didn't, it didn't come,

didn't come to me that we were actually doing for the, uh, the fans as well. And the, the thing is, is something that I can never live down is in, in fast and furious one, I was the guy in the red Ferrari on PCH who goes,

they, when Paul Walker says, uh, Ferrari, how much did that cost? And I say, more than you can afford, pal, Ferrari. That's how those kids recognized me a lot of times from that one. That was you? That was me, unfortunately. Yes, and I vowed that I would never go on screen again after that. But Rob Cohen, the director at the time, convinced me to do it.

And then now, when I won't do it for other directors, they're like, well, we're not your favorite anymore. And I was just like, no, I'm just a bad actor. I don't want to ruin your scene too. But that was the most rewarding part of making these movies. I saw that one. We still had Grantland at that point. I was still there.

And we went. They had that big theater in LA Live. So I went with, I think, Rafe Bartholomew and marco santi and one other person was it was it a pack it was like an afternoon pack crowd and dead ending we didn't we didn't know because i always try to avoid like reading about i didn't know how you're going to handle it but and i was really dubious of of how i was going to handled. And then it goes and the whole thing. And it was like one of those where I'll try not to. We're all choked up.

We're like trying not to make eye contact with each other. And then we all just started laughing. We were like, I can't watch. It was like a real male bonding moment. I cannot watch the movie anymore because I know that if I watched it right now, I would cry with it because he was, Paul was the greatest, um, guy I'd ever met. He was a real guy's guy. He was, he was, girls loved him, guys loved him. He was just, he was so full of life. He really was, um, a surfer, outdoorsman, um, more than an actor. And he, even though he was really good at what he did,

he was just the greatest guy in the world. And honestly, when that happened, when his passing happened, that accident happened, we were just like, we're not going to finish the movie. How much had you done at that point? We'd done over half of the movie. And we were just like, we can't finish the movie. We just can't do it.

And Universal said, take some time, think about it, see what you guys want to do. And we just didn't know what to do. We didn't know what we could do or what we should do. And then when the writer— Did you get input from the cast and stuff? Yeah, we all sat there and we all talked. And we spent a lot of time together,

whether it was that we had a little ceremony at the accident site or whether it was at the funeral where I spoke. I didn't have to speak. I was honored to speak, and it was maybe the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. In fact, I was sitting there about to go up at the funeral to give my speech, and I was just like, I said to my wife, I said, I don't think I can do it here. Will you take my speech and go do it for me? And she says, no, you need to do it. And it was the most cathartic thing for me ever i'm glad i did it because i would never uh forgive myself if i didn't do it yeah um but it wasn't until chris

morgan came up with that idea at the end of the road splitting um that we knew we had a way a path to the end of this movie and then we had to then work our way backwards and figure out with the footage that we already had existing and the special effects things that we were able to do, how we could make that story work. But I look back at it and that scene, the combination with that song, I thought was the perfect way to honor it.

Yeah, how'd you get the song? Did you know you had the song? Or did you tell him to do it? No, that song was I thought it was the perfect way to honor him. Yeah, how'd you get the song? Did you know you had the song? No. Or did you tell him to do it? No, that song was written for the movie. We have these songwriting camps kind of things where we show a lot of filmmakers, I mean songwriters,

the movie or particular scenes, and we said, here's the scene, this is what we're looking for, come back with it. And I remember when I first heard that first melody that first uh melody that charlie uh pooth wrote um that we knew we had something incredible and you know there was talk about should we is

charlie proof going to be the artist or are we going to replace him with somebody else and i'm so glad that we went with his soulful version of it with wiz khalif on top and i just think it's you know the perfect combination of music and film um some people say to me are you disappointed that you never guys get honored you know awards and I said the only thing that only word that I ever thought that we got bypassed for that we should have really got was that in the academy awards that that song the best song wasn't nominated and should totally agree it was there was no song more fitting to a movie to the emotion or the picture than that song in the history of cinema as far as i'm concerned

i think it's one of the best endings ever it's one of the best song and scene combinations and you're right like there's a bias against super successful movies and comedies with the oscars but that's a good example of like what song meant more to a movie than that song i can't even imagine i think plus it was it was so important that that if you guys had fucked that up the whole franchise is dead and every nobody forgives you for it and then it affects how people regard the other movies it was so nice were so high for it it was so nice we had the premiere saturday night at radio city musical in front of 5 000 screaming fans and it just an incredible, it was like a barnstorm. I mean, people were going crazy.

And it was so nice. I didn't know till that day that Paul Walker's mother and daughter would be at the premiere. And I found out that day and that made me kind of nervous. And I think the way we've handled that in number eight is as special as what we've done. And I mean, different, but special. And they were so pleased and so proud of the fact that that's what we've done. And I mean, different, but special. And they were so pleased and so proud the fact that that's how we've done it. And we've really tried to, you know, keep the family involved with us. They'll always be involved in the franchise.

So working backwards in that one, you had all this footage of Paul Walker, but then you had all these other scenes he had to be in. And we wrote a lot of new material. You had to rewrite some stuff. Because what we were lucky is we had the tinge of a fact that Paul and Jordana were getting tired of this life.

They have kids. We had just the beginnings of that and we thought that that would be a great through line for their characters. The question was, how were we able to do scenes along the way till the end that we hadn't shot? And obviously, Paul, how could we do that with existing footage or voice or visual effects or the brothers? How could we do it? So you used his brothers for some of the

fill and stuff right we didn't we didn't we never used their faces right we used their we were like who's going to be the closest to him in terms of manners yeah and we use them for that in combination with uh digital capture that we already had of paul in terms of with uh uh visual effects that was created for the movie. You guys were pretty tight-lipped about how you did it. It was the one thing during the movie. I remember Googling it. How did they do this?

There was nothing. We didn't want to ruin the experience for the people. What was funny is when we showed the movie, and I remember at one point we asked the question, can anybody tell which is Paul and which is not? And the scenes that people picked that they didn't think were Paul were really Paul. You know, so I think that Weta in New Zealand did a day to get this that finished in time and just let them know how important paul was to us and that we needed it that's how good we needed it to be so did you

somebody tells you this idea like yeah we think we can do screen capture did you actually think it was going to work you know i really believe these guys because they're the best in the business there had to have been a small shred of doubt like, what if they're wrong and we end the movie. There was a huge shred of doubt and honestly there was no turning back. Once we started, there was no turning back and we didn't get the final shots until weeks from the time

the movie was coming out. And is this like millions of dollars? How expensive is it? Very expensive. It was breaking new ground. Right. See, I'm fascinated by this because it feels like you stumbled on something that, in a lot of ways, this is where movies could go. Like, what if we made Godfather 4 and you had Marlon Brando in it? Yeah. I think you can do it in limited amounts and get away with it from the audience.

We were lucky that we never had two scenes in a row where it wasn't the real paul walker right okay so let's say we had the real paul walker and then we had the special effect version of paul walker and if people start to say is that through well the next scene is the real paul walker so now all of a sudden it gets discounted so we got lucky honestly he was smiling down on us and made it all work i don't know if we could do it again. And his family was cool with everything. We went, we were, we walked them through everything. You know, they, they knew how special he was to us and how special the franchise was to him. And they really encouraged us, encouraged us to finish. Quick break to talk about baseball. My fantasy season is already over because Byron Buxton killed it, but that doesn't mean that I'm still not going to watch baseball all year.

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for free. Start listening today. TuneIn, your everything audio app. Back to Neil Moritz. How did you convince The Rock to be in Fast Five because you could argue he was the biggest star in that movie and he didn't know the biggest part well i had worked with him on the movie i did called the gridiron gang which was about this prison camp and you know based on a true story

documentary that i'd seen so i had a good relationship with him and um i have to give his agent credit his agent came to us at the time and said, I really want to get rock in this. And we're like, really? And we went to rock and it all worked out. And, you know, so he started in five, six, seven and eight. And, you know, we hope to do many others with him. Did you have to add five million a movie in the budget for Body Butter and stuff like that? No, he brings his own.

He brings his own. That was included in the price. Smart negotiating point. That was included in the price that was included in the prize yeah uh but uh he's the hardest working guy i've ever seen i mean this guy doesn't stop he's gonna be the president united states someday i would vote for him that maybe is that maybe that's fast 12 maybe you know everybody keeps president i don't know there's this rumor out there right now that the next fast is going to space and i'm like where is this coming

from and like yeah and like five different uh reporters have asked me about this and i go i don't know where this is coming from but no we're not going to space well what other places are left there's a lot of places i want to see i've got to travel like antarctica this time or something there's some well this time don't tell me too much but it looks wintry. We shot in Iceland. Okay, Iceland. We shot in Cuba. We shot in LA. We shot in New York. We shot in Cleveland. And we shot in Atlanta.

Cleveland? Yes. Because we needed a place where we could wreck a lot of cars in a very urban setting. What a stretch for Cleveland. They make the World Series. The Cavs win. I was there. Republican Convention.

Fast Furious. I was right there during the basketball playoffs, and I actually got to go see LeBron play. It was worth it. That's why we went, so I can go see LeBron play. What are the Rock and Vin Diesel stuff? I never know what to believe and not believe. I mean, honestly, I kind of just— I had to ask.

I know it's uncomfortable. I count it up to, like, you know, every family has a little tiff once in a while, but it's all good. It's all fine. It's no big deal. I mean, honestly, you know— Tom has a little tiff once in a while but there's it's all good it's all fine it's no big deal i mean honestly you know the time you believe that okay i mean they they have different styles of working and but they're both huge stars and they both uh uh bring a lot to the the franchise and um this is a great answer this is like hearing and i wish i i wish i could have more of them when they fought in fast five nobody wins the fight it's very carefully it's like they go to the scorecards harold letterman just scores at 9 10 he doesn't even give everyone

a template round yes was there a lot of thought put into that to make sure nobody got the upper hand? I think that we were really determined that it was going to be the most equal fight of all time. Yeah, I think it was. We wanted it to be like you were in that room with the two of them beating the shit out of each other. And I think we accomplished that. What about Ronda Rousey versus Michelle Rodriguez? That was in... that was in seven that was in seven in dubai and you know ronda hit her pretty good uh and but the thing is michelle

can fight now she can't fight like ronda uh in real life but she can fight and so that was a good battle so there was an accidental hit um they you know they? They went at it pretty good. It wasn't tame. They were going for it. And then there was the Gina Carano. Michelle won in six. I've never liked her after she turned on everyone. Yeah, that was pretty bad.

But that was a good reveal at the time. It was good. People did not see that coming. Nah, I've never forgiven her. And there's a couple twists in number eight that people definitely do not see coming. Yeah. And it wasn't, you know, after seven, after seven, we were really like, we could have just stopped. I mean, honestly, there was a lot of conversation.

How dare you? There was a lot of conversation about stopping. That's ridiculous. I know, but, you know, it felt like a fitting place. And we were determined that we weren't going to do it unless we could come up with an idea that was really worthy of it and I think when Chris Rorigan the writer came up with the idea that Dom goes bad and turns against the team that that like that put turned the light bulb on for me and I was like okay now I can see how we can keep going I was saying in the ringer office a few months ago that you know you get season tickets for sports franchises and some movie

franchises had that too you know like a new star wars movie comes out all the star wars people are going of course it's just just sign it up like just charge my credit card and i think fast the fast furious franchise i never totally know what to call it because it's been the fast and the furious fast furious i just got the fast franchise the fast franchise okay um it earned season ticket Because it's been The Fast and The Furious, Fast Furious. I just call it The Fast Franchise. The Fast Franchise, okay. It earned season ticket status for me between four and five. Well, I think, you know, I think... Four was so satisfying and it was like, all right, they've gotten it. They figured out the family part, which obviously your godfather one and two thing, there's some DNA in that.

But once they figured out that it was really about family and friendship and Dom's the center of that and that's what he carried that's when it felt like it could just keep going and going and keep adding people but I but I think that movie audiences are so fickle I think that you go make a bad one and oh well that yeah that goes without saying um so we honestly you know everybody talks about, oh, 8, 9, 10, it's a trilogy. And I keep saying to everybody involved in the movie, no, no, let's make 8 great,

and then we'll worry about 9. We kind of have the big overarching ideas of what that 8, 9, 10 can be. Out of space. Yeah, exactly. The White House. And I know we're definitely, what the last scene of it's going to be.

But I don't really know what's going to happen in between then. And I don't think any of us really do. We were just determined to make 8 great. I think coming off of 7 where people emotionally so clicked with that film, I think there was a lot of people doubting as to why there needed to be an eight. And I said to everybody, who are these people? I want to fight them. And I think that eight has just a lot of pressure on it about it being worthy. And honestly, I feel like we really didn't meet the challenge. There were many times during the process where I wasn't sure we were

going to be able to meet the challenge. But now that I look at the end product and I look at it, watch it with an audience, it definitely has met those goals. What's been the most expensive of the eight to make? Number eight. Oh, eight? Yes, for sure. Because all those cities you went to or the salaries or everything? All the cities and just think about the amount of big actors we have in the cities and travel and success who's the biggest actor who wanted to be in this series but you couldn't cram him or her in you know it's interesting it wasn't till recently that we've actually had actors come to us who wanted to be part of fast and furious it used to be we had to beg people to be involved with a fast and furious movie people

you know i never felt like i felt like we were the the the team that didn't get that much respect and now it's turned and that's why like both charlize and helen mirren and stay them and the rock you know people started have started to come to us and say we want to be involved in the franchise is there anybody you didn't fit in that um or you can't say no there has no but we have some ideas of who we want to have going forward so is that all you have to do to be in you just have to ask

I think can I be in I think sure we'll put you in as a do you want to play dead body or something

I want to have like I want to be in the Ferrari and make some catty comments you're a little old for that I'm too old you're too old maybe I could

I don't know unless you're like the douche no maybe you could be like the douche bag in the Range Rover I'll do it I'll do whatever

okay that's fair enough. That part was reserved for me, but I will give it to you. Thank you. I appreciate it. So nobody, you never swatted anyone away? No athletes? We've had a couple athletes. We've had a lot of musicians who have come to us.

Rappers. A lot of rappers have come to us and definitely athletes. But I am just really, just like there are certain car companies that come to us and want their cars to be part of our film yeah i feel like that if they don't fit what a fast and furious movie is there's no way no matter how much money they want to offer us to have their car in the movie there's no way i'm putting them in the movie it just takes the reality pick the cars you don't there's no back anything oh well no. We do have a relationship with Dodge. Okay. But those cars, the only reason we have that is because those cars fit our movie. Yeah.

Whereas other car companies have come to us, they just don't fit what a Fast and Furious movie is. And our audience can smell it. We're like the poster child for diversity in movies. And I think a lot of other movies have tried to do that but it when it doesn't feel organic to the subject matter or the type of movie you're making the audience smells and they just like oh so they put an Asian guy and an Hispanic girl and a black guy so you know to fill out you know to attract an audience whereas for our movie it feels organic and we've always been I think the movie the inclusive movie versus the exclusive

movie and i think that you know most people believe that they could come be a part of our crew and be accepted for who they are because that's kind of what we've tried to establish so dom's never gonna drive a volkswagen jetta because they offered a lot of money i don't think so what's that corona's doing you and corona have some sort of relationship we love corona drive a Volkswagen Jetta because they offered a lot of money. I don't think so. I don't think so. What about Corona? Corona's doing. You and Corona have some sort of relationship. We love Corona. Dom drinks a lot of Corona. Yes, he does. You've got to teach Vin Diesel how to drink a beer

before Fast 10. He always tilts it all the way up, upside down. He holds it like this. Is that a beer drinking coach? But he does that in person, too. So that's his move? That's his thing. I've never seen anyone drink a beer drinking coach? But he does that in person, too. So that's like his move? That's his thing. I've never seen anyone drink a beer like that.

I've never seen that either. I think it's a required thing. It's his signature. For sure. It's definitely interesting. Maybe he never drinks beer other than in the movie. No, he does. He likes beer.

It's like when some actors are trying to smoke and they hold their fingers wrong and you can tell they're not smokers. Luckily, you can't really have smoking in movies anymore. All the studios have really banned it from being able to have a movie unless it's like a period piece or unless it's like some filmmaker that has such power that he can convince the studio. 008 So is Corona the official beer of Fast and Furious?

009 Official beer of Fast and Furious. 0010 It is. 0011 Unpaid. 0012 When did that happen? 0013 Unpaid. 0014 Unpaid official beer of Fast and Furious. 0015 Unpaid. You've done like hundreds of millions Of dollars of advertising

For them I know it's crazy It's crazy But It could float you Like a Five spot or something Or just give me a lifetime

Of Corona beer Yeah they should be Mailing Cases and cases I should have a palette Of it in front of my house Right now You should have a giant

Cake of it Who was the worst driver Of all the Fast franchise people That you had to really Do the most work with I think Natalie Natalie Emanuel I don't remember Being a great driver driver of all the fast franchise people that you had to really do the most work with? I think Natalie Emanuel. I don't remember

being a great driver. I'm trying to remember. There was somebody who had not driven before our movie, and I can't remember who it was. But most of them. Michelle's great. Vin can drive. Tyrese can drive.

Ludacris can drive. Vin just can't run. You have to hide his running. The running's a little... Yeah. There's a couple good YouTube clips of Vin. Luckily, he doesn't have to run very much in life. Even if he's in a car, he doesn't... Yeah.

He doesn't have to run very much in life because people usually run away from him. Yeah. But, you know, when you're big and strong, it's a little harder to run. What's the biggest complaint you get about the franchise from people? Do they go, like, why did you kill off... What's her name, Gal Gadot? Gal Gadot and Han. I still don't understand why they had to die.

I know it had to advance the story. If I had one thing to do in the franchise, I would not have killed them. What was they thinking of killing them? Justin really, really felt, for dramatic purposes, it was a really important thing to do, to launch us into the third act of that movie. And we had so many discussions about it. And ultimately, we went with his wishes.

But as much as I love Justin, that would probably be the one thing that I would have probably changed. I have Justin. I have a good mutual friend. And the theory the mutual friend has is the Asian character was Justin's proxy in the movie and Justin knew he wasn't coming back I think that was his way of like I think I think there could be some truth that but he likes he likes Sung Kang so much that I don't necessarily believe that he would want to take his livelihood away from him so I'm not sure I believe in that um I think that he just felt like from a story point and a character point that it was really,

really important. I mean, and, you know, I have to say it's been a very, very collaborative experience with all the directors we worked with. We've had, let's see, Rob Cohen, John Singleton, Justin, James Wan, and Gary Gray, five directors in eight movies. And we've encouraged each one of them to do when they come into the series is to make it their own. Really, put your stamp on it.

Make it your own. Make it your own vibe. And just like if we feel like you're getting outside of what a Fast and Furious movie is, believe me, we'll let you know. But push the boundaries. Like, go for it. Make it different.

What's the biggest flaw in any of the movies that you wish you could just go back and fix? What's the biggest flaw in any of the movies that you wish you could just go back and fix it's the biggest flaw my performance and number one for sure that's a recast that you could i would have cast you you could have done it that was really bad i would my personal biggest flaw is vin being able to study the start the tire tracks after letty's mysterious death and just knowing from the tracks and putting his finger on the powder and knowing only two shops in LA made it.

I don't think anyone's that good. I'm sorry. It was our CSI moment. It took it right out of CSI. It was like CSI for cars. Actually, you know what? Gary Scott Thompson, I'm sorry,

which was the show, the writer of the first one, Gary Scott Thompson, I'm sorry, which was the show, the writer of the first one, Gary Scott Thompson, did one of those shows. So I'm going to chalk it up to that. Not CSI, but it's a show. That's what it was? He's got like the flashbacks. All of a sudden you can see the crash.

I mean, I loved it. I'm not complaining, but that could be considered a flop. The good news is when you have characters that people love, they let you skip by that stuff. They're going to buy everything. As long as they love the characters. And Vince gives great toasts, which I think, I mean, Vin gives great toasts, which.

We have great barbecue and great toast. Great barbecue, great. Salud me familiar. And a lot of those stuff. You know what the regret I have? Is that I didn't buy the Toretto house in Boyle Heights back in the day because I would have charged a fortune. Is that like a tourist attraction now?

Oh, it's a tourist attraction. And more importantly, just think about how many times we've as a production have gone back there. I could have charged myself a lot of money. Oh my God, I didn't even think of that. You're right. Plus that area when we first started in 2000

was crappy and now it's like full on hip. I know, I was going to say that probably the most unrealistic scene in the movie is that Boyle Heights is this kind of, you know, you the streets you're living it's not the case anymore back then it was back then in 2000 was yeah I think you'd have now it's very now it's very high price neighborhood yeah you'd have to go really in the outskirts of LA now to find yeah or or super super inner city one or the other but it's it's it was really fun on seven to go back there you know I mean it's just uh yesterday I was driving up to our set in Los Feliz on SWAT.

And I drove by the corner where we had shot one of the last scenes with Paul Walker. And I just like it was flashbacks. And, you know, we used to be able to shoot so many movies and so much of things in Los Angeles. And I have so many memories from shooting. And now we never get to shoot in L.A. because there's's no tax break anymore so it's not a lot of places to go where'd you shoot the big the big fight scene at the end of uh what's the one where Rock has the broken arm six uh six we shot that in Atlanta not downtown LA no unfortunately I feel like that would have been a major news story if downtown LA had been just completely annihilated like that.

Yeah, you know, that was... I mean, there are blocks and blocks of just complete destruction. But that's not one of my favorite scenes, that chase through the city, the third act there. I love the fight and stuff between Paul Walker and Tony Jaa through that building, but I wasn't crazy about the whole kind of you know it's a weak spot when people when i've had the arguments about what's the best fast movie

that's what i throw at the people who say fast six i the the climactic scene isn't isn't quite there right in my opinion but when rock goes out the window in the first 20 minutes it's awesome that's like it's awesome it's just jarring. It's like, is he dead? Did they just kill him off? What happened? I mean, he's barely in Fast 6. He's got like six scenes. He didn't shoot that much time in Fast 6.

Yeah, he's too famous. You can barely get him. I think it was the availability of what he was shooting at the same time. I can't remember. But, you know, we just... The people that we have in these movies are in demand for a lot of different things,

so it's really hard to get everybody back together. That one point we had decided, thought, could we shoot like fast six and seven at the same time, you know, go back to back and just with the schedules and the amount of time it takes to shoot each of these movies. And more importantly, the fact that we'd never would ever be able to have two scripts finished, just made it impossible. When did you realize that this was like a

multi-billion dollar franchise? Did you see that coming in during Fast 4? Or was it not until Fast 6? I think it was end of Fast 4 going into Fast 5 where we started to see such an upswing and we were starting to get just... We used to be like a one and a half quadrant film like you know it'd be like guys under 25 and half a girl's under 25 and as the movies just kept going we've evolved to the fact now we're a four quadrant movie it's men women young old we get

everybody now it's become almost like a family experience you know and that's where you started to see the the transition where we became much more of a a broader movie than just kind of a genre me i i i'm a huge fan of kind of b genre movies and roger corman who made a lot of the b movies back in the day and his office is literally like 50 yards from mine and it was one of my idols. The way we got the title for Fast and Furious was we were making the first one and it was called Red Line, it was called Street Wars, it was called Race Wars

it was all these lame titles and I remember going to a documentary on American International Pictures which made all the Beach Party movies and all the Hell's Angels movies and the Vincent Price movies. And that was a company that my family had been involved in my whole life. And I went to see this documentary on it

and I was watching it and they were going a section over the Roger Corman movies. And I said to my dad during, I said, I need a title like Roger Corman would come up with. And they started talking about a movie called Fast and Furious.

And I'm like, that's the fast and furious and i'm like that's the fucking title excuse me but that's the time you can swear that's the title and i remember calling universal the next morning and i called the head of the company i said okay i think i got the title and i said he said what is it and i sheepishly said the fast and furious and there was just silence on the other end and he's like i'm not sure let me think about it i'm like oh wow i'm a real idiot that think about it i'm like oh wow i'm a real idiot that was a lame title it sounds great now but then it was like the fast and furious and then a day later he calls me back and he goes you know ever since i can't stop thinking about

that's what we gotta name it i go okay let's go to roger corman who made the time we went to roger corman and we traded him stock footage from old universal movies for the title. And that's how we got the title. Oh, man, he should ask for more. He should have gotten some draft picks. It's funny. I'm going to actually go see him on Friday. But he should have definitely gotten more. But at the time, you know, now it's like, you know,

they're naming military programs after The Fast and the Furious and stuff like this. But at the time, honestly, when I first said it, it sounded lame. I mean, you could have just called it Fast, because that's basically what it became but remember then there was another movie called fast i can't remember there was i think so faster i think dwayne johnson might have actually been in it i barely remember that i've seen so many action i think it was directed by like george tillman or something like this

well it's a good title yeah but then you did you did, it was weird, you did Fast and Furious. Too fast. Was it the fast and? It was the fast and the furious. The fast and the furious, but then it was Fast and Furious. Then it was Too Fast, Too Furious,

then it was Tokyo Drift, then it was Fast and Furious, then it was, I can't get them all confused now. Fast 15 would be like Furious and Fast. It was Fast 5, Furious 6. Furious at being fast. And I kind of, I wasn't sure, to be honest,

I wasn't sure about the fate of the Furious. Yeah. At first they wanted it to be Fate of Furious. And I was like, no, if we're going to do that, it's got to be the fate of the Furious. Yeah. That I can live with. So going backwards quick.

So did you move to Hollywood to become a producer? No, I actually grew up in Westwood in Los Angeles. I had always been around the film business. My grandfather owned a lot of the movie theaters, or not a lot, but movie theaters in downtown Los Angeles. My father and his sisters were the ushers and managers of those theaters. One of the ushers and managers of those theaters one of the ushers

at my grandfather's theaters asked him for a five thousand dollar loan to start a distribution company that loan became american international pictures which made all the movies i talked about the vincent price movies the hell's angels movies the billy jack movies my father and our family was one of the ones who ran ran the company as a kid, I worked in the mailroom there. I worked on some of the sets of the movies. I went to UCLA undergraduate. And in my junior year, I went on something called Semester at Sea where I go around the world on a boat for a school of 600 students. When I was in China in 1981, every kid in China was carrying these school bags,

these canvas bags, these canvas bags with this Chinese writing on it. I brought them back here, gave them away as presents. Next thing I know, people were asking me where they could get these. Me and my buddy started a company in 1981 making these women's purses. We had a factory in Taiwan. Luckily enough, did pretty well, was able to sell the company to an investor that we had taken on, went back to graduate school at USC to something called the Peter Stark Motion Picture Producing Program. Did that for two years, got out, tried to get a job. There were no jobs. And I'm like, what the hell am I going to do? It's like 1985. And I said, screw it, I'll just hang up my shingle and try and make it happen and i just tried to make it happen and luckily you know 60 movies later i'm sitting here what

was your first break that got you some momentum i kind of look at it there was a lot of little breaks but i made like three movies in a row for hbo then i made what were the three i've seen every hbo i made a movie called rat pack i mean i loved Pack. We nominated for Emmy. It was really good. One of my favorites. It's a really hard one to pull off Sinatra and Dean Martin, all these people, because they were so indelible anyway. I thought that was a good one. Ray Liotta, Don Cheadle, Joe Montaigne.

Yeah. Then I made... By the way, that's probably on HBO Go, I'm guessing. They have all their old stuff. I haven't seen it in so long. If anybody likes Sinatra and those people, I would go download that one. That was a good one. Then I made a movie called Blind Justice with

Armando Sante. Then I made a movie called Framed with Jeff Goldblum and Kristen Scott Thomas. Those were all for HBO. Then I made Cruel Intentions was one of my earliest films. Then I made a movie called Juice, which we introduced Tupac to the world. Let's go back to cruel intentions we just did a reese witherspoon

podcast on our channel 33 pod and i was saying like that was the sweet spot of i'm gonna say from like 97 to 2001 it was a little pre-internet it was definitely before all the devices and all this stuff when holly was just flooding the market with teen movies and horror movies but this was and all this stuff and this was like the dangerous liaisons it was like wow this is rated r that it was awesome it's one of my favorites one of my favorites too and one of my favorite experiences those were all my friends because i had made i know what you did last summer right before that and you made that one too yeah that one's on cable constantly i hope you're getting paid for that one. Yeah, luckily.

Both of them. That one and the sequel, they're on all the time. And that's where I met Sarah and that's where I met Ryan and then Ryan met Reese on the audition for I Know We Love. So we all knew each other

and then we put that together. I raised the financing independently. Me and my buddy Roger Cummett went off and made that movie completely on our own. What happens if they switch parts, her and Sarah Michelle Gelle geller i don't know if it works we talked about that on the on the reese podcast i don't know if it works

because reese is probably reese is not like the goody two-shoes she plays in that movie and she could play the other one and sarah michelle geller's like trying to go against type because people thought she's like the heroine and buffy and she's always kind of it could have worked i guess guess. I never thought that. We actually just made a pilot for a Cruel Intentions TV show for NBC that didn't get picked up but was really close and it came out really good, really well.

It's kind of... Well, first of all, great soundtrack in that movie. Well, the song by The Verve, Bitter Seed. It really captures whatever late 90s music scene was going on there. There's a whole story in just trying to get that song. The only reason we got that song is because we had tried to get it for so long, but they were in a lawsuit with the Rolling Stones. They sued them for ripping the song.

Oh, no. And they had to pay the Rolling Stones off, and we ended up paying like a million dollars to get that song. But I don't know if there's any other song that could have fit that like that. We were talking about good music slash scene endings. That's another one. That's probably in the conversation. I made Sweet Home Alabama with Reese as well.

A rom-com hall of famer. Yeah, it was great. And then I made one of my favorite movies I ever made was Juice with Tupac Shakur. The kids growing up in Harlem, yeah. That's my favorite movie. Tate, Tate woke up. I saw Juice in the theater just for the record. kids growing up in Harlem. Yeah. That's my favorite movie. Tate. Tate woke up. Yeah.

I saw Juice in the theater just for the record. If I could show you the picture of what I looked like when I made that movie in 19, I guess 91-ish, I was a full-on surfer kid with long blonde hair,

but I was living in Harlem making this movie wearing my Malcolm X hat with my big, you know, cordless phone at the time and it was an amazing experience for like a white Jew boy from, you know, Westwood wearing my Malcolm X hat with my big cordless phone at the time. And it was an amazing experience for a white Jew boy from Westwood to be living in Harlem making this movie with some of my favorite people of all time, Public Enemy, did the music for the movie.

And it was just an amazing life experience. And I look at that movie all the time, and I'm so happy with it. Well, we've got to talk about Pac now because well I just feel like the acting he was the acting side of him is the part that gets lost and people are like oh man we miss Tupac and Biggie and it's like Tupac was a really good actor he was the smartest one of the smartest people I'd ever met but probably the angriest person I'd ever met that doesn't surprise me and when we this is true about how he got that role. We were auditioning every young kid for that movie, and we could not find who the role of Bishop should be. We couldn't find it.

And we were getting so frustrated. We were getting near the start of production, and we just were like we knew how pivotal that role was. And every rapper was coming in to audition, and this one guy from Digital Underground comes in, and he's just not good but with him is his roadie tupac and i remember i was so kind of down to the dumps go to the bathroom and tupac catches me on the way out and he says you know i can do that shit and i

go do what what he says i can do that and i said okay well take the sides here they are and come back in at 15 minutes. And we're sitting there and he comes back in. He comes in. He reads it. And he is Bishop. He does that scene of him at the locker where the locker opens. And he gives that haunting speech to Omar Epps, who was playing the role of Q, where he basically tells him, you do what I say.

You're going to die, kind of thing. And that was it. He got the role. That's unbelievable. I almost don't believe that. It's 100% true. I could do that? And then he just grabs the script and disappears?

We were so desperate at the time. And he was incredible in the movie. He had... He was incredible in that movie. That's a really good movie. And, you know, he had so much soul to himself. I think he wanted to be this kind of tough gang element guy. But in reality, he was a smart guy who just couldn't control his temper. And ultimately, it got him.

I mean, I admired him. I really loved him. And I remember saying to him, dude, if you don't come down, you're going to get yourself killed. I was in Vegas at the fight when he was killed or he was shot. And then I was at his funeral in Atlanta. It was such a sad thing to see such a guy who was so talented go down like that. Did he ever get mad at you?

Probably. Probably. You blocked it out ever get mad at you? Probably. Probably. You blocked it out of your mind, probably. Probably. I don't know. You know, it's funny. When you catch some of these stars on the rise up, they still kind of remember you in a different way. Like, I was always kind of the boss to him.

Yeah. So it never came back. I had a very good relationship with him. And he heard my advice. Doesn't mean that he, he took it, but he definitely heard what I was saying. So it was all baby steps that led to the fast franchise.

Yeah. It sounds like a lot of successes. And there was, I am legend. There was click, there was SWAT, there was triple. There was a lot,

a lot of movies along the way that all felt like gigantic steps at the time. But when I look back, they were all little steps leading me to be able to do something like this how many people are still in fast eight that were there in fast one i am up until fast seven it was me and the costume designer and she couldn't do eight so i'm the only person who's been involved with all eight movies amazing yeah it's pretty amazing so for from Fast 1, Vin's obviously there. Yes. But I mean, he took a couple breaks.

But then he wasn't in 2. Right. Was anyone else from, and I guess Michelle Rodriguez, she went away and came back. Paul was in all except for. Paul was in the first seven. Oh, no, he was not in 3. Yeah. So that's it.

I mean, it's really interesting, but that's, you know. So it's a big part of my life, obviously. So we have outer spaces left. No, we're not going to. I did Passengers this year. That took care of my outer space movie. So I'm done with space now. Passengers, was that? Jennifer Lawrence, Chris Pratt.

No, no, I remember. But, I mean, it was critically panned. Did it do well, though? We did throw over $300 million worldwide on that movie. So how do you justify that if people don't seem to like the movie that much, but it does well? Because that's what happened was, and that was a very valuable lesson to me. I loved that movie. I loved it.

It was one of my favorite experiences making a movie. I love Chris Pratt. I love Jennifer Lawrence. I loved the director. I thought the script was one of the best scripts I had ever read. And there was a weird thing that happened. We had, you know, done a new numerous test screenings on that movie that were very, very encouraging to us. And we had, you know, arguably two of the biggest stars in the world between Jennifer and Chris Pratt and everything was looking great. And around 10 days before that movie came out,

the first review came out. And a review came out where the reviewer said that we were justifying date rape, that we were. And I was like, what? And I thought back to all the screenings that we had, and nobody had ever thought that. But it was weird one guy said that and a lot of media picked up on that and it became the mantra that that film kind of carried and i thought it was a really unfair thing because i think it's a beautiful

film that i couldn't be more proud of and i i love the movie um but it was weird how the media sometimes that can happen to you and it seems like they didn't like it immediately and then that just became what held yeah but it was i didn't follow it that closely but that was interesting but what was what was interesting is is that our audience reaction on our kind of our cinema score from people who actually saw the movie was really good so it was it was a hard it was a hard one because i really thought it was i thought you know it did it did do very good business but i thought it was going to do was a hard one because i really thought it was i thought you know it did it did do very good business but i thought it was going to do excellent business and i thought that was

actually a movie that did have a chance to be rewarded with quite a few uh rewards we got a bunch of like technical awards but i really thought it was gonna there was gonna be more to it so it just shows you um in the movie business it doesn't matter how great the experience of making the movie is or how bad the experience is. One doesn't guarantee success and one doesn't guarantee failure. You can have the worst experience ever making a movie and it can be a huge success

and it can be the other way around as well. What's the success rate of those test cards? I went through it once because I was one of the producers on Million Dollar Arm and the scores were phenomenal and they were like, this is the best Disney sport and then then it was like didn't do that well i think i think that there's there are two things one tells you um if you can get people into the movie theaters and they see the movie that's what that test score represents but there's a whole other thing is is the movie marketable

like can you get people to show up to the movie theater? And that's two very different things. Okay. So if the test card says to you... I look at two things. You're probably not getting people to the movie theater, then what do you do? Well, I look at two different things. I look at test scores of the screenings. That's one. And then I look at test scores of our marketing materials because when we make trailers and we make commercials, we test those and we're able to tell whether those materials are working enough to bring people to the theaters. Did you ever get fooled by the wrong results with a movie? Yeah, I don't think they're exact, and I don't take anything verbatim.

But I try and take the general comments, try and understand the general things that are people saying, the macro. The way I look at my job as the producer is I really really as much as i'm involved with the micro of movies i really try and keep a macro perspective of the movies i try and keep kind of an 800 foot perspective of the movies and make sure that we're not nobody's getting lost in the weeds because ultimately you know you're spending 90 of your marketing dollars the last 10 days before a movie comes out and you're spending 90% of your marketing dollars the last 10 days before a movie comes out and you're trying to get people into a movie based on most of the time a 30 second spot.

Are you able to crystallize what that message is and make it interesting enough that you're going to get people to get off the couch, drive somewhere, spend money to go see your movie? I don't think that we'll ever figure it out especially now that's the hardest thing about the movie it just seems like it's getting more and more confusing and then you look at the oscars and like i i never in a million years would i have thought la la land was going to make like 400 million dollars well i see something like that i'm like i there's just no way we're the thing i think about la la land is that i think it was different. It was unique and it was original.

But there's been a lot of different original movies. Not one that crossed over like that. You couldn't have expected that. I didn't expect that it was going to do. I don't know if it did 400 million, but I don't know what. So it was over 300. Yeah, I don't know what it did. It did very well.

I didn't think it was going to do that much. But once that just got that critical thing going, it just kept going and going and going. I mean, even if you look at a little movie like Moonlight, which wins, who would have ever thought that'd do $30 million? I mean, it's such a tiny little personal story. But once you get into that bubble of the machine, of the critics and the awards and all that stuff working behind you, it definitely helps. Well, so you're at eight. I don't think anyone could have seen eight Fast movies. critics and the awards and all that stuff working behind you it does it definitely helps well so you're at eight i don't think anyone could have seen eight fast movies what were there five die hearts um you know i think this has to be the non-james bond record somebody told me that

for a movie non-based on an ip not based on a comic book or a book or a play or something that just an original script original idea that we have that the record most yeah because there's i mean there's been i don't know how many harry potters but that's based on a book james bond was based on a book you know there's there's all source material for those things that had a popularity to those properties before they became movies and what's interesting is i i just don't imagine this movie going without vin diesel and so like james bond there were other you know they had what seven james bonds and james bond was kind of character nobody else could be dom teretto true and i can't

imagine anybody else being the anchor of of the thing so it kind of goes on for as long as he wants it to go. Yeah. Or you create a universe where there's become spinoff of different movies with individual characters is something that's a possibility as well. Almost like a comic book. Yeah. It's a possibility. But we're determined right now to really concentrate on finishing the show.

So Tyrese is getting a spinoff is what you're trying to tell us. If you ask him, he was. Neil, thank you. Thank you so much. I love the franchise. Keep them coming. All right. Appreciate it.

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