Fast And Furious Cast Members That Have Threatened To Leave The Movies

Over the past two decades, the Fast and Furious franchise has cranked out 10 feature films (including the spin-off Hobbs & Shaw), raked in close to $6 billion worldwide, and made legit actions stars of pretty much every actor on its cast roster. Of course, most of the actors who work in the Fast & Furious cinematic universe have been doing so since the early days. As such, they've come to feel as much like a family in real life as they do while driving fast and fighting furiously on screen.

Watching the Fast and Furious cast grow into a makeshift family over the years has probably been as much fun for fans as watching the actual films, which have become even more unapologetically ridiculous with each new offering. But, like any family, things aren't always copacetic between the members of the Dom Toretto Crew. In fact, it sometimes seems like the Fast family bickers about as much when the cameras are off as when they're rolling. 

Some of those feuds are more intense than others, and from time to time, matters have gotten a bit out of hand. On a few rare occasions, the fate of several Fast and Furious characters have hung in the balance as an actor decides whether or not their franchise family is worth the hassle. These are the Fast and Furious cast members that have threatened to leave the movies altogether. 

As is the case with most family in-fighting, many Fast and Furious feuds have been relatively petty in nature. But in the case of long-time franchise actress Michelle Rodriguez — who plays Letty Ortiz, the wife of Vin Diesel's Dom Toretto — the grievance was far more serious. Rodriguez wasn't impressed with the way the Fast and Furious movies have treated their female characters, and after portraying the fiery Letty in five of the eight franchise installments, she was fed up with the ladies playing second fiddle to their male counterparts. 

Taking to Instagram in June 2017 on the day The Fate of the Furious was released on digital, Rodriguez posted a decidedly ominous warning that she'd leave the franchise if female characters didn't get more attention moving forward. She wrote, "I hope they decide to show some love to the women of the franchise on the next one. Or I just might have to say goodbye to a loved franchise. It's been a good ride and I'm grateful for the opportunity the fans and studio have provided over the years." 

Previously, Rodriguez told Entertainment Weekly in May 2017 that she found it upsetting that her character rarely interacted with other women in the Fast franchise. "I've been making movies with Jordana [Brewster], who plays the sister of Dom Toretto, for 16 years and I can count on one hand how many lines I've had to her. I think that's pathetic and it's [a] lack of creativity," she said.

Rodriguez's complaints found friendly ears with her on-screen beau Vin Diesel, who took the opportunity to show her some love in a supportive Instagram post. He wrote in the caption of a video of the two together, "Proud of Our saga... but we must try to reach higher each time. The challenge is what makes it fun and exciting. Its also why this saga has reached the level that it has... you have been the best fans in film history and we are forever grateful... Dom and Letty."

It remains to be seen how much the Fast and Furious franchise beefed up the roles of their ladies in the upcoming F9, but fact that Rodriguez is indeed in that film is a promising sign.

Regarding the ninth Fast and Furious film, even the most casual franchise fans will have noticed in the first trailer for the movie a distinct lack of eyebrow-arching mean-mugging from Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, who joined the series with 2011's Fast Five. While traditional wisdom would tell you the actor couldn't fit F9 into his busy schedule immediately after headlining the franchise's first spin-off film Hobbs & Shaw, Johnson's long-simmering feud with his Fast and Furious co-star Tyrese Gibson may have factored into his absence as well. What we know for sure is that the idea of Johnson joining F9 was enough to make Gibson, who's played Roman Pearce in the film series since 2003's 2 Fast 2 Furious, threaten to quit the franchise entirely.

The on-going beef (which is very one-sided, according to Johnson) stems mostly from Gibson's perception that Johnson put himself before his Fast and Furious family when he signed on to star in Hobbs & Shaw in 2017 — a move that caused Universal Pictures to push F9 back a full year. (It will now be released even later, in May 2020.) Gibson blamed Johnson's commitment to Hobbs & Shaw for the F9 delay, then proceeded to throw shade in Johnson's direction via social media — even going so far as to call the superstar a "candy-a** b****" and a "clown" before accusing him of using steroids. In that public arena, Gibson then threatened to leave the series if Johnson was involved in F9. 

Luckily for Gibson, Johnson isn't in F9, sparing the pair and the rest of the cast from any nasty behind-the-scenes bickering.

With every new addition to the Fast and Furious franchise, the action has gotten bigger and the stakes have gotten higher. In turn, many tragedies have befallen Dom Toretto and his crew over the years. Sadly, a real-life tragedy almost ended the film series in 2013, when O.G. The Fast and The Furious star Paul Walker died in a car accident. At the time, Furious 7 was still unfinished. Though producers managed to finish the film, using the actor's brothers as physical stand-ins in combination with clever CGI work to recreate Walker, most fans would agree the franchise has never quite filled the void left in the wake of Walker's death.

As it happens, that void was nearly present much earlier in the franchise's history, though for dramatically different reasons. After filming the first two franchise entries (2001's The Fast and The Furious and 2003's 2 Fast 2 Furious) and shooting a cameo spot for 2006's Tokyo Drift, Walker was ready to leave his Fast and Furious days behind. 

"I thought [the franchise] was stale," Walker said in a 2011 conversation with The Los Angeles Times' Amy Kaufman. "They were talking about my involvement with the fourth one and I was like, 'Are you kidding me? Really?' Obviously, we made the first one that catered to pop culture and a youth-driven audience. But trends shift overnight with that audience. Nine years later, I really questioned if there was even an audience anymore."

With franchise producers unable to sway Walker, Vin Diesel him up and convinced him to get back behind the wheel for the fourth Fast film. He'd spend the next few years racing through a handful of sequels, helping bring some much-needed heart and soul to the action-heavy franchise.