Fast X is the beginning of the end of the main wing of the series, and for its villain, it’s reaching all the way back to the film that took the franchise next level: Played by Jason Momoa, baddie Dante Reyes is no less than the son of Hernan Reyes (Joaquim de Almeida), the drug lord executed by Dwayne Johnson’s Luke Hobbs in Fast Five. The franchise has often included call-backs to previous entries. But for star Vin Diesel, it was important to reach back to one of the series’ best.
In an interview with Total Film (as caught by SyFy), Diesel teased how the Fast X’s relationship to Fast Five will, when people see it, be deeper than simply poaching it for a villain:
“The last movie really delved into that, and dictated, of course, the reveal of the brother [Jakob, played by John Cena]. In that line of thinking, there is so much un-mined territory within the films that, when you follow the storyline, it produces a really interesting and rewarding story. You’ll see as the finale pans out, it’ll make sense why, in the same way we went back to the first film for Fast 9, we went back to the fifth film for Fast X.”
Whatever’s in store may wind up tying the entire series together, but the Fast/Furious films have always looked to the past even as it evolved in ways few would have imagined while watching the original in 2001. Baddies in one film, like Jason Statham’s Deckard Shaw, will become “family” members by the next entry. It’s even brought one character (Sung Kang’s Han Lue) back from the dead.
But we’ll see what Diesel is talking about when Fast X hits theaters on May 19.
