Next Fast and Furious Movie to Bring Back Paul Walker?
Vin Diesel is drumming up interest in the next Fast and Furious movie by teasing something many fans may not want. The star of the franchise appeared at FuelFest, an event that celebrates car culture, and teased the next and final installment in the series of car-racing-turned-bloated-action series, which, based on his t-shirt, will be called Fast X Part 2. Diesel begins by saying that Fast X Part 2 will be in theaters in April of 2027 (he frames this by claiming Universal Studios asked him to “please” have it ready by then), then declares that he said he would do it under three conditions: that it take place in Los Angeles (which has absolutely nothing to do with him appearing at an event in Los Angeles), that it go back to the street racing scenario of the first few movies in the franchise, and that Diesel’s character, Dominic “Dom” Toretto, be reunited with his old best friend, Brian O’Conner. Brian O’Conner was played by Paul Walker, who tragically died in a car accident in 2013. The last Fast and Furious film he appeared in was Furious 7, which hadn’t completed filming when he died; stand-ins – including Walker’s brothers – and digital trickery were used to complete his scenes and to give the character a send-off that fans seemed to appreciate. You can see Diesel’s appearance below:
Vin Diesel announces Brian’s return in #FastX Part 2, releasing April 2027, at Fuel Fest
@Fuel_Fest pic.twitter.com/cNZEz5OINO
— Fenix Nests (@FenixNests) June 29, 2025
You can imagine why people are, to say the least, worried about how Fast X Part 2 will bring back a character played by an actor who is no longer with us, assuming that’s what Diesel means by “reuniting” Dom and Brian. Will the same techniques used in Furious 7 be employed to resurrect Brian without Paul Walker? Will AI technology bring Brian back with a completely digital recreation of Paul Walker while, to speculate, artificially replicating his voice? If so, it lands Universal and the series in murky moral territory. Sure, they did this once before, but that was for a movie where Walker had filmed a decent number of scenes before he died and in which he was one of the main characters; it was also done with the intention of giving Brian a satisfying, if sad, exit from the series, one that reinforced his bond with Dom and acted as a tribute to an actor who died so young. Nobody had a problem with that, and fans of the series still celebrate the final scene where Brian says goodbye to Dom today. Now, they’re not only talking about effectively undoing that moment but doing something many have been worried about and bringing a dead actor back so the studio can make money off of a dead man. If they go this route, I assume Walker’s family signed off on it, but it still feels a little morbid. I think this may be Hollywood’s way of testing the waters and seeing how audiences react to this; if Fast and Furious fans are okay with Universal digitally recreating Paul Walker (again), maybe they’ll be okay with bringing back other deceased movie stars in other films.
And make no mistake, everything Vin Diesel claimed were his demands for Fast X Part 2 were business decisions that, I suspect, did not really come from him. The last two Fast and Furious movies, F9 and Fast X, underperformed, turning what had become a billion-dollar earner of a franchise back into the $700 million range, where it was when Fast and Furious 6 came out. The problem is that the Fast and Furious movies have gotten much more elaborate and, therefore, much more expensive to produce, with Fast X costing $340 million! After marketing, distribution, and other expenses, $700 million and some change isn’t going to yield a big enough return to justify spending that amount of money, if it even makes a penny for Universal. There have been signs of this since Fast X’s theatrical run, with the promised return of the Rock as Luke Hobbs and rumors of a more reasonable budget for Fast X Part 2. Now, not only do they seem to be scaling back on the over-the-top action, but they’re also trying to bring back Paul Walker as Brian O’Conner; I imagine they’re hoping that even people against the idea of resurrecting dead actors will be curious enough to go to the movies and see how it looks. Remember, this is all being revealed almost three months after Diesel originally announced Fast X Part 2 would be released, so obviously, this movie has been massively retooled. There was also supposed to be a movie with the Rock starring as Hobbs that would “bridge the gap” between Fast X and Fast X Part 2, but that never materialized either. Maybe they’ll combine the two, close out the storyline with Jason Momoa’s villainous Dante Reyes (the most entertaining part of Fast X by a mile) in the first half – or even the first scene – and then settle in for a pared-down street racing flick that saves them cash on everything but AI. Will it work? I have no idea. If they have a reasonable budget, they’ll probably get enough fans of the franchise to make it successful, if only just. At the same time, I wonder if you can really go backwards in a series that has turned Dom and his “family” into spies who fight international terrorist organizations. Street racing is a huge step back from that, and those who were brought in by the action era of the series could be disappointed. I guess we’ll find out in 2027.
Let us know what you think of Fast X Part 2 bringing back Paul Walker in the comments!
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