Papa Vinyard here, now here's a little somethin' for ya...
Variety has announced that Djimon Hounsou is joining the increasingly-cluttered cast of the next entry in the FAST & FURIOUS franchise. No word as to who his character will be, or even whether he'll be on the side of Dominic Toretto and Luke Hobbs' bald heroes, or with Jason Statham's similarly-bald Ian Shaw.
Djimon's can play a no-nonsense badass in his sleep, and it's nice to see him join this array of clean-scalped tough guys. Whether he'll be primarily brandishing a gun or working a steering wheel in the role, I don't doubt that he'll make an impression, and be more memorable than Luke Evans' forgettable villain in FURIOUS 6. Hopefully, he can provide more juice to this franchise than he was able to grant the TOMB RAIDERs when he popped up toward the end of THE CRADLE OF LIFE.
The article also reaffirms that Kurt Russell is onboard, presumably for that villain role that would have him playing a small role in this one and then stepping up as the central antagonist in FAST 8. We hadn't had official confirmation of his signing, and there had been rumors going around that a deal couldn't be reached between Russell and Universal. I'm glad that that's all bullshit; when you've had The Rock and Jason Statham jump onboard your franchise, you need someone with the tough-guy and fanboy-approved credentials of Russell to keep that momentum going. We don't want to get to the point where we have to muster up excitement that Paul Walker's SKULLS co-star Joshua Jackson is joining the series.
FAST & FURIOUS 7 drives into theaters on July 11th, 2014.
-Vincent Zahedi
”Papa Vinyard”
vincentzahedi@gmail.com
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