Fast X Theory: Jason Momoa's Dante Kills Hobbs Offscreen

Dwayne Johnson and Vin Diesel's feud ultimately led to the former departing the "Fast and Furious" franchise. As it turned out, the blockbuster street racing saga wasn't big enough for the both of them. The duo, who helped bring the series to international prominence with "Fast Five," "Fast & Furious 6," and "Furious 7," refused to share scenes in "The Fate of the Furious." Johnson later left the mainline movies entirely to star in the spin-off "Hobbs & Shaw," with John Cena filling his former-wrestler-sized hole in "F9: The Fast Saga."

Johnson won't feature in "Fast X" either. That fact is unsurprising given his history with Diesel, but it's a bit curious given the story of the film. Jason Momoa's new villain, Dante Reyes, is the son of Hernan Reyes — the big baddie from "Fast Five." In the new film, he hunts down Diesel's Dominic Toretto and the rest of his family in order to exact vengeance. What for exactly? Stealing his father's stolen fortune, dismantling his criminal empire in Rio, and shooting him dead. To be fair, that's certainly a list worthy of a vendetta.

Here's the thing, though: Dom didn't kill Hernan Reyes. Neither did Brian (Paul Walker), or Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), or Roman (Tyrese Gibson), or Tej (Ludacris). Johnson's Luke Hobbs is the one who actually takes Reyes out, killing him in cold blood to avenge the deaths of his Interpol team. It doesn't make much sense for Dante to go on a revenge quest of his own and not seek out his father's actual killer. That is, unless he murders Hobbs offscreen, thereby purging The Rock from the franchise for good.

At this point, it seems extremely doubtful that Dwayne Johnson would ever return to "Fast and Furious." Speaking with CNN at the end of 2021, the star responded to Vin Diesel's public claims of wanting Johnson back. "I was firm yet cordial with my words and said that I would always be supportive of the cast and always root for the franchise to be successful, but that there was no chance I would return," Johnson said, referencing a private conversation between Diesel and himself.

In the year and a half since, there's been no indication that he's changed his mind. If anything, the sheer number of new franchises he's headed up in recent years — a list that includes "Jungle Cruise," "Red Notice," and "Black Adam" — would seem to suggest he's moved on to greener (if less financially successful) pastures. Johnson has arguably been the biggest movie star in the world for some time now, and he may simply consider his brand too successful to play second fiddle to Diesel again, feud or no.

Of course, that leaves the "Fast" saga in a bit of a strange place. The movies have always emphasized that brotherly bonds between characters are forever, so it would be weird to end the series without ever seeing Hobbs again. Fortunately for Diesel and Universal Studios, there are other ways of wrapping up character arcs that don't require Johnson to return.

Going off of the "Fast X" trailers, it seems that Dante Reyes is purely out for revenge. He's not after a cyber superweapon, or money, or world domination like the movies' more recent villains. He simply wants to hurt Dom Toretto and everyone he cares about, just like Deckard Shaw in "Furious 7." Of course, Shaw eventually becomes a part of the extended "Fast" family. Such an arc seems less likely for Dante.

The curious thing here is that Hobbs is the person Dante should hate most. He's the one who put two bullets in his father's head when he was unarmed and begging for his life. He's also the one who let Dom and his crew go free. Sure, Dante might be upset about all the money Dom stole — a theft that definitely would have altered the comfort of his life — but that hardly seems like fuel for a blood feud.

If Dante really wanted to exact vengeance for his father's demise, Hobbs would be the natural first target. And maybe he is. Maybe Dante goes after Dom and the others only after killing Hobbs, thereby proving how much he means business.

Over the years, "Fast and Furious" has become infamous for keeping characters alive through impossible circumstances, even bringing a couple back from the dead. In "F9: The Fast Saga," there's a running bit about the crew being invincible. However, Vin Diesel and director Louis Leterrier have teased a bit more severity for the end of the saga.

"That's the beauty of arriving near the end of this franchise: I don't have to go, 'Oh, well, these characters will live forever,'" Leterrier told Total Film in March 2023. "They might not, because it's the end. Only in westerns do cowboys gallop out into the sunset. This is definitely different." The director explained that since "Fast X" is the end of a two-part finale for the mainline series, the team was able to adopt a more serious tone than fans may be used to. "It allowed me some freedom to raise the stakes even more than they've been raised before," he said.

Some of that may just be general interview yakety-yak. The new movie looks to feature all the absurd silliness we've come to expect, including Dom drag-racing down the face of a dam. But there also could be some truth to it. In the wake of "Avengers: Endgame," franchises the size of "Fast and Furious" are expected to go out with bangs. Killing off a beloved character like Hobbs could be an effective way to do just that.

"Fast X" already seems to be taking a lot of cues from "Furious 7." The latter film was one of the most successful and acclaimed in the entire franchise, so pulling inspiration from it isn't a bad move. Once again, we've got a scary new villain with a vendetta against Dom that's based in family history. So why not establish how powerful Dante is the same way "Furious 7" did with Deckard Shaw — by having him kill a fan-favorite character?

The difference here would be that Hobbs could just as easily be written off quietly. Because Han (appeared to have) died in "Tokyo Drift," the story was always going to wrap back around to his (not quite) fatal crash. "Furious 7" simply made the accident more important than it was previously. And then, of course, he came back from the dead in "F9."

Killing Hobbs would be a whole different beast for a few reasons. For starters, it's a character who's been shown time and again to be basically unbeatable. Secondly, because of Johnson's expulsion from the series, there'd be no chance of a surprise resurrection later on. Both of these things — the difficulty Dante would have in killing Hobbs and the finality of his demise — would help set the stage for a high-stakes showdown. It would remind the audience that characters in "Fast and Furious" are indeed mortal, and it would give Dante a leg up on the franchise's usual brand of dime-a-dozen bad guys.