As the excitement revs up for F9 to finally jump into theaters (and our hearts) after being delayed an entire year due to the pandemic, director Justin Lin has been reflecting on his time with The Fast and the Furious franchise and his unlikely inspirations along the way. While sitting down for Entertainment Weekly’s BINGE: The Fast Saga podcast, Lin opened up about how he almost didn’t come back to the franchise after Tokyo Drift. The director changed his mind after stopping at a small town Arby’s with Sung Kang and seeing kids freak out over the Han Seoul-Oh actor.
From there, Lin was locked in and got to work reshaping the franchise, which included drawing inspiration from one of his favorite shows as a kid: The Golden Girls. As Lin explains to the BINGE hosts, the classic sitcom was involved in a network-wide crossover event that blew his young mind, and he’s wanted to create his own shared universe ever since.
#TheFastSaga director @JustinLin reveals how #TheGoldenGirls inspired #FastFive!
Watch the full ‘#EWBinge: @TheFastSaga’ episode: https://t.co/Yf0mb8YZ3u pic.twitter.com/V9ofMxCQl0
— Entertainment Weekly (@EW) May 24, 2021
Via EW:
“Saturday nights, it was Golden Girls, Empty Nest, and then there was [Nurses]. They had this thing called Hurricane Saturday night, all three episodes got hit by a hurricane. That was the first time where I was like, ‘Oh, they all exist in the same universe.’ That was the inspiration for Fast Five. We brought back all the characters, they all existed in the same universe. That’s the Golden Girls connection.”
According to Lin, The Golden Girls are officially part of the “Fast lore,” and he would love nothing more than to have Betty White in the last two films, which has to happen now. You can’t just say that and not have Betty White jumping muscle cars while Vin Diesel rides shotgun.
(Via Entertainment Weekly)
