Late last night, TMZ reported that The Rock and Vin Diesel have “squashed” their boy sh-t and will be signing on for Fast Furious 9. As you’ve probably heard, F8 just set a worldwide box office record. So, obviously, the studio wants in for another one. According to TMZ, The Rock and Vin will give them one:
The Rock and Vin Diesel have buried the hatchet and both will star in the next installment of the insanely popular 'Fast and the Furious' franchise ... sources involved in the production tell TMZ.
Our sources say Vin and Dwayne have met privately several times since animosity between them exploded on the set of "The Fate of the Furious." We're told they are "good" and both are "1000% in" for the next flick.
The sources are opening up about the feud ... one explaining it was all over "real estate." In movie language, real estate is all about how much an actor shines -- who gets the best action scenes, who gets the hottest girl, who shows off their body more, and who gets the most face time.
It became a big issue for Dwayne and Vin, but ultimately, Dwayne acknowledged it was Vin's movie -- he's listed #1 on the call sheet.
The one thing the feud was not about ... money. They both make a fortune off the franchise.
But all systems go for the next installment.
Not about the money? It’s ONLY about the money. The worldwide box office kind of money. But, obviously, since TMZ invests in the male point of view or, more accurately, the SUPERIOR male point of view, in that men aren’t petty and can work together to put aside their differences for the greater good, we get a story about how these two egos decided to be team players. And now the team is intact and can move forward…to make more money.
Right. And that explains why there wasn’t a single photo of them together during the promotion for F8. And it explains why, as Sarah wrote in her review, they were barely together onscreen in the movie.
So don’t f-cking try to sell it to me like this was about magnanimity. Rather, I prefer you sell it to me like this:
The Rock is a good businessman.
Or…
The Rock shows his work.
This is what he Instagrammed on Sunday after the F8 box office numbers were official:
What's the next move? What's the best move? What's the smart move that gives the people what they want?
Now the internal dialogue and business strategy begins.
That was posted just before TMZ’s exclusive that The Rock will move forward – alongside Vin Diesel – on Fast Furious 9. Already he was telling us that he’s been thinking about the work, has probably been thinking about this work decision well before it became public. Weighing the downside of working with an asshole like Vin Diesel against the upside of having this on his already long list of commercial successes.
Vin Diesel, while he’s #1 on the Fast Furious call sheet, only really has Fast Furious. The Rock has Fast Furious, and San Andreas 2 (they’ll presumably do this until they cover all the fault lines on the globe), probably Baywatch (no doubt he’s driving that to become a franchise too), he’s working on Jumanji and that’ll be a monster, and of course he has Ballers on HBO – he just wrapped season 3:
Yes, The Rock was shooting Ballers while promoting F8 and dressing up as Pikachu for Easter and working on some kind of music documentary and 18 other things that are in the pipeline…all while making sure his muscles don’t deflate.
So…to go back to the boy sh-t between The Rock and Vin Diesel, oh the boy sh-t is 100% still there. It’s just that The Rock is using it strategically. Fast Furious is all Vin Diesel has. It’s his empire. The Rock is making Fast Furious just one part of his even BIGGER empire. And, one way or another, he’ll let Vin know.