Director Justin Lin has taking the Fast & Furious brand—a potential cheesy action mess–and turned it into a highly lucrative film franchise. Now the time has come, where Lin has chosen to walk away from what he built.
After directing the long running Fast & Furious films, starting off with Tokyo Drift and ending with Fast and Furious 6, reports surfaced that the famed director has informed Universal Pictures that he has quit and isn’t interested in making a seventh film for the company. The studio wanted Lin to begin pre-production on Fast and Furious 7, while simultaneously closing out post-production on Fast and Furious 6, which is slated for release next month. Lin camp is saying that Universal inconsiderately inflicted this rigorous time restraint on the director just to meet a 2014 summer release date at the expense of Lin’s creativity. Sources are saying Lin was just “flat out not cool with that,” believing that he wouldn’t be able to deliver his best work in such a short time.
Get this, had Lin directed the Fast & Furious 7, he would have tied the record of directing the most films in a franchise set by John Glen. Lets face it, its not like Lin is struggling for work; he has been attached to many other projects, including Hibernation, Subdivision, Lone Wolf and Cub and L.A. Riots.
Universal is going to have to find another director to take the torch for Fast & Furious franchise or atleast consider Lin’s creativity. Yea right!
