‘Furious 8’: Jason Statham Confirmed To Return
Dom Toretto’s “family” will surely be back forFurious 8, but it looks like one of his foes will as well.Furious 7villainJason Stathamhas confirmed he’ll be back for the next installment of the high-octane franchise, along withVin DieselandDwayne Johnson. Get theFurious 8Jason Statham casting announcement after the jump.
Statham announced his return forFurious 8in an interview onAccess Hollywood:
We’re already talking about doing another one, Part 8. I’m a newcomer, I just got invited to the party in this last one, so it’s nice to know I’m going to be doing another.
The bald British badass debuted as Deckard Shaw in a brief cameo at the end ofFast and Furious 6. He then returned inFurious 7as the main antagonist, facing off with both Hobbs (Johnson) and Toretto (Diesel). The last we saw of him, he was (spoiler alert!) being locked away in a high-security prison. But he was still very much alive, which means it shouldn’t be too difficult to work him back into the story.
Furious 8is expected to move the excitement to New York. Which is famouslynota driving city, but I suppose destroying the Big Apple is a sort of rite of passage for big action franchises. Diesel, Johnson, and now Statham are the only cast members definitely returning, though Diesel has alsohintedthatKurt Russellwould be back as covert operative Frank Petty.
TheFast and Furiousfranchise suffered a huge blow when Paul Walker passed away during the shooting ofFurious 7. While no one will ever replace him, the filmmakers deserve lots of credit for figuring out a way to give Walker a proper sendoff while also forging ahead without him.
Indeed,Furious 7turned out to be the series' biggest installment yet. It’s currently the fourth highest-grossing movie of all time, with a $1.5 billion take, and was the fastest film ever to reach $1 billion untilJurassic Worldbroke that record earlier this week.
