Furious 7 (also known as Fast & Furious 7) is a 2015 action film directed by James Wan and written by Chris Morgan. It is the sequel to Fast & Furious 6 (2013), a follow-up to The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006), and the seventh installment in the Fast & Furious franchise. The film stars an ensemble cast including Vin Diesel, Paul Walker (in his final film role), Dwayne Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, Jordana Brewster, Djimon Hounsou, Kurt Russell, and Jason Statham. In the film, Dominic Toretto, Brian O'Conner, and their team are recruited by covert ops leader Mr. Nobody to prevent terrorist Mose Jakande from obtaining a hacking program known as God's Eye, all while being hunted by Deckard Shaw, the brother of Owen Shaw.
Plans for a seventh installment were first announced in February 2012 when Johnson stated that production on the film would begin after the completion of Fast & Furious 6. In April 2013, Wan, predominantly known for horror films, was announced to direct the film. Casting revealed the returns of Diesel and Walker that same month. Principal photography began that September in Atlanta, but was indefinitely suspended in November after Walker died in a car crash; filming resumed in late March 2014 and ended in July, with Walker's brothers Caleb and Cody standing-in to complete his remaining scenes, causing delay to its 2015 release date, with other filming locations including Los Angeles, Colorado, Abu Dhabi and Tokyo. Brian Tyler, who had composed the score for Fast Five (2011), returned to compose the seventh installment.
Furious 7 premiered at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles on April 1, 2015, and was released in the United States on April 3, by Universal Pictures. The film received positive reviews from critics for the performances, action sequences, direction and emotional tribute to Walker, with many considering it to be the best film in the franchise. It was a box-office success, grossing $1.515 billion worldwide, making it the third-highest-grossing film of 2015 and the fourth-highest-grossing film of all time at the time of release. It also set a record for the second-highest opening weekend of its time. It was the highest-grossing film of 2015 internationally and became the highest-grossing film of the franchise in the first twelve days of its theatrical release. A sequel titled The Fate of the Furious was released on April 14, 2017.
Plot
After defeating Owen Shaw and securing pardons for their past crimes, Dominic Toretto, Brian O'Conner, and the team have returned to the US to live normal lives. Dom tries to help Letty Ortiz regain her memory, while Brian accustoms to life as a father.
Meanwhile, Owen's elder brother Deckard Shaw vows revenge for the now-comatose Owen. Deckard breaks into the DSS field office in Los Angeles to extract profiles of Dom's crew and fights Luke Hobbs and Elena Neves, detonating a bomb that severely injures Hobbs. A letter bomb sent by Deckard, who has killed Han Lue in Tokyo, explodes and destroys the Toretto house.
Dom learns about Deckard from Hobbs and travels to Tokyo to retrieve Han's body. At Han's funeral in LA, Dom spots Deckard and chases him by car, but Deckard flees when a covert ops team, led by government agent Mr. Nobody, arrives. Mr. Nobody tells Dom that he will help them in stopping Deckard if Dom helps him retrieve God's Eye, a computer program capable of tracking anyone in the world on a digital network, and save its creator Ramsey from Mose Jakande, a Nigerian terrorist.
The team, including Dom, Letty, Brian, Tej Parker and Roman Pearce, airdrops their modified cars over the Caucasus Mountains in Azerbaijan and ambush Jakande's convoy, where they rescue Ramsey and leave for the Etihad Towers in Abu Dhabi. They steal the flash drive containing the God's Eye chip hidden in a W Motors Lykan HyperSport owned by a billionaire prince. With God's Eye secure, the team uses it to track Deckard, but Deckard, having expected this, has allied with Jakande, who ambushes them. The team is forced to flee while Jakande obtains God's Eye.
The team returns to LA. Dom plans to face Deckard, while Letty, Brian, Tej and Roman resolve to protect Ramsey from Jakande. As Jakande uses God's Eye to doggedly pursue the team with a stealth helicopter and an aerial drone, Ramsey attempts to hack into God's Eye. Hobbs leaves the hospital and destroys the drone while Brian hijacks a signal repeater tower that allows Ramsey to remotely shut down God's Eye.
Jakande attempts to flee and spots Dom and Deckard in a street brawl atop a public parking garage. Jakande turns on Deckard and attacks both men. Dom uses the distraction to defeat Deckard and crashes his Dodge Charger onto Jakande's helicopter, allowing him to leave a bag of grenades on it. Hobbs shoots the grenades, killing Jakande.
Letty tearfully tells an unconscious Dom that she has regained her memories. Dom regains consciousness. Deckard is arrested by Hobbs and locked up in a black site prison. At the end, Dom and the team acknowledge that Brian has happily retired, opting to be with his family in peace, with another baby on the way. As Dom drives and recalls his memories with Brian, the two bid each other farewell.
Cast
Vin Diesel as Dominic Toretto: A former criminal, professional street racer and millionaire who has retired and settled down with his wife, Letty. Paul Walker as Brian O'Conner: A former LAPD police officer and FBI agent turned criminal who has retired and settled down with his wife, Mia, and their son, Jack. This was Walker's final Fast and Furious film, as well as his final film appearance. Caleb and Cody Walker, Paul's younger brothers, were used as stand-ins to complete his remaining scenes following their brother's death. Dwayne Johnson as Luke Hobbs: A DSS agent who allied with Dom and his team after their outings in Rio de Janeiro and Europe. Johnson initially said that if Universal Pictures pursued the accelerated development of a seventh film beginning in the summer, he would be unable to participate due to scheduling conflicts with filming on Hercules (2014). However, as production for Furious 7 would commence in September, Johnson confirmed his return, for Hercules would complete production in time to enable him to shoot the film. Michelle Rodriguez as Letty Ortiz-Toretto: Dom's wife and a professional street racer, who was revealed to have suffered from amnesia after being presumed dead in Fast & Furious (2009). Tyrese Gibson as Roman Pearce: A former criminal and childhood friend of Brian from Barstow, and a member of Dom's team. Ludacris (credited as Chris “Ludacris” Bridges) as Tej Parker: A mechanic from Miami and a member of Dom's team. Jordana Brewster as Mia Toretto: Dom's sister and a former member of his team who has settled down with her husband, Brian, and their son, Jack. Djimon Hounsou as Mose Jakande: A Nigerian-born mercenary and terrorist who leads a private military company that allies with Shaw, and uses God's Eye to track its creator, and uses her to track down his enemies. Tony Jaa as Kiet: A member of Jakande's team who possesses great agility, athleticism, and fighting prowess. Thai martial arts actor Jaa was confirmed to have joined the cast in August 2013, making his Hollywood debut. Ronda Rousey as Kara: The Head of Security for an Abu Dhabi billionaire. Rousey's involvement was confirmed in August 2013. Having committed to The Expendables 3 (2014) at the same time, Rousey was forced to shoot both films back-to-back in order to allow herself 45 days to focus on training for her UFC championship rematch against Miesha Tate. Her participation in the film was similar to that of Gina Carano making the transition from mixed martial arts fighting to acting, following Carano's involvement in Fast & Furious 6 (2013). Nathalie Emmanuel as Ramsey: A British computer hacktivist and the creator of the God's Eye, who allies with Dom and his team after being saved from Jakande and helps them to regain control of her program.
Kurt Russell as Mr. Nobody: The leader of a covert ops team who agrees to help Dom stop Shaw if he can help him prevent Jakande from obtaining a computer program called the God's Eye.
Jason Statham as Deckard Shaw: A former special forces soldier and intelligence agent who seeks to avenge his comatose younger brother after his hospitalization at the hands of Dom and his team in Spain.
John Brotherton portrays Sheppard, Mr. Nobody's right-hand man. Sung Kang and Gal Gadot appear in archive footage as Han Lue and Gisele Yashar. Lucas Black reprises his role as Sean Boswell, an American street racer who lives in Tokyo whom Dom meets when he travels to Tokyo to claim the body of Han, a mutual friend of theirs killed by Shaw. In September, it was confirmed that Black had signed on to reprise his role as Boswell for Furious 7 and two more installments. Elsa Pataky reprises her role as Elena Neves, a DSS agent and former Rio police officer who moved to the United States to become Hobbs' new partner at the DSS. Luke Evans briefly reprises his role as Owen Shaw, Deckard's now comatose younger brother, from Fast & Furious 6 (2013), and Noel Gugliemi reprises his role as Hector for a cameo appearance from The Fast and the Furious (2001).
Ali Fazal portrays Safar, a friend of Ramsey to whom she sent the God's Eye for safekeeping. Fazal described his role as a cameo. Australian rapper Iggy Azalea (who also appears on the soundtrack) makes a cameo appearance as a racer at Race Wars. American singer/rapper T-Pain appears as himself as he DJs a party in Abu Dhabi. Romeo Santos makes a cameo appearance as Mando, who shelters Mia in the Dominican Republic and Klement Tinaj appears as one of the Race Wars racers.
Production Development On October 21, 2011, the Los Angeles Times reported that Universal Studios was considering filming two sequels—Fast Six and Fast Seven—back-to-back with a single storyline running through both films. Both would be written by Chris Morgan and directed by Justin Lin, who had been the franchise's writer and director, respectively, since The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006). On December 20, 2011, following the release of Fast Five (2011), Vin Diesel stated that Fast & Furious 6 (2013) would be split into two parts, with writing for the two films occurring simultaneously. On the decision, Diesel said:
We have to pay off this story, we have to service all of these character relationships, and when we started mapping all that out it just went beyond 110 pages ... The studio said, 'You can't fit all that story in one damn movie!'
However, in an interview on February 15, 2012, Dwayne Johnson stated that the two intended sequels would no longer be filmed simultaneously because of weather issues in filming locations, and that production on this film would only begin after the completion of Fast & Furious 6 (2013).
In April 2013, during the post-production of the retitled Fast & Furious 6 (2013), Lin announced that he would not return to direct the seventh film, as the studio wanted to produce the film on an accelerated schedule for release in summer 2014. This would have required Lin to begin pre-production on the sequel while performing post-production on Fast & Furious 6 (2013), which he considered would affect the quality of the final product. Despite the usual two-year gap between the previous installments, Universal chose to pursue a sequel quicker due to having fewer reliable franchises than its competitor studios. However, subsequent interviews with Lin have suggested that the sixth film was always intended to be the final installment under his direction.