The Fast & Furious franchise is now officially a cinematic universe. After eight films in the main saga, the series is getting its first spinoff with Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw. But will this endeavor be a failed experiment, or will Hobbs & Shaw get a sequel? The film certainly looks like a tentpole blockbuster with aspirations to start its own franchise, given its massive budget and duo of bankable action star leads in Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham — not to mention the stellar supporting cast of Idris Elba and Vanessa Kirby. So should fans expect 2 Hobbs 2 Shaw-ious?
Nothing has been confirmed as of yet with regard to a Hobbs & Shaw sequel, but it definitely seems like the plan is for multiple movies featuring the musclebound pair. In a report for The Hollywood Reporter, Kim Masters and Eriq Gardner state that Universal Pictures is hoping the film will generate sequels, while also making plans to produce other Fast & Furious spinoffs, including a female-led film starring Charlize Theron. And the studio heads aren't the only ones hoping for more Hobbs & Shaw sequels.
One person who specifically believes the movie will get a sequel is Hobbs & Shaw's director, David Leitch, as he views the movie as the start of a brand new franchise. "It’s an origin story, in a sense. It’s not an origin story, but we’re starting a franchise," Leitch told Collider. "So we want it to be a little bit more grounded, a little bit more character-centric. We’re going to set up the stakes for these guys and their relationship, but we’re also going to have some great set pieces and some action that you’d expect from that type of franchise."
The director went on to describe how he had one eye on the future while developing Hobbs & Shaw. "I think long term. Obviously being true to the script and making the best movie, you do want to seed elements that allow you to expand the universe and have enough characters to move forward," Leitch told Collider. "We have to set up the world so it has the potential to grow. That’s what I’m saying with, if we’re digging into their respective worlds outside of Fast, they’re going to have their own universe in a sense."
Like pretty much any film with this amount of money involved, whether or not Hobbs & Shaw gets a sequel will ultimately come down to how well the movie does financially. The movie cost a lot of money to produce — $200 million according to Box Office Mojo — and since movies generally need to double their budgets just to break even, that means Hobbs & Shaw will probably need to clear half-a-billion dollars at the worldwide box office to be considered a financial success. The bad news is that only seven films have managed that kind of haul so far this year. The good news is the last time a Fast & Furious movie failed to deliver that kind of payday was a decade ago when the pre-Rock Fast and Furious brought in $363 million.
Pretty much all signs point to Hobbs & Shaw not only getting a sequel, but starting a brand new franchise. So if you like watching these two guys punch people and blow stuff up, then you'll likely get to see them do so for years to come.
