It Took Eight Months To Get One Action-Packed Four-Second Scene In ‘F9’ Just Right

In The Fate of the Furious, Michelle Rodriguez harpoons Vin Diesel’s car (the movies are even better if you imagine they’re all documentaries and Rodriguez and Diesel are playing themselves) and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson stops a torpedo launched by Charlize Theron from a submarine with his bare hands. How can F9 possibly top that?

By spending eight months on a four-second scene, that’s how.

Before Sunday’s “The Big Game,” as it’s called for legal reasons, Universal Pictures released a new promo for the ninth installment in the Fast and Furious franchise. There’s a backyard picnic attended by not-dead Han; a voiceover about family, because of course there is; John Cena looking angry; and Helen Mirren finally, FINALLY, getting to drive a car. It’s all great, but the promo saves the best for last:

F9 director Justin Lin hopes you enjoyed that (I did), because it took a hundred people eight minutes to perfect it. “One 4 second shot in #F9. 8 months of prep. 4 days of production. 3 cars destroyed. Work from over a hundred of the most dedicated and talented crew,” he tweeted, along with a behind-the-scenes video. “Best job in the world!”

U.S. News & World Report ranks “physician assistant” as the best job of 2021, followed by “software developer” and “nurse practitioner,” but I disagree. “F9 director who gets paid lots of money to play with cars and make them explode” is the best job of 2021.

F9 comes out on May 28.