In 2001, long before ideas about going to space or turning their protagonists into quasi-superheroes arose, the creators of Fast and furious they had a very different picture. The first movie tried to portray the world of drag racing in a realistic way, but there were many flaws in the plot. To “fix” the script, David Yesterday (Suicide Squad) joined the creative team and reviewed it, which apparently gave Fast and furious the success it had. However, the filmmaker probably regrets doing it.
During his most recent passage through the podcast Royal Ones, hosted by Jon Bernthal, the filmmaker talked about how he got involved in the successful car franchise. In his words, the script by Gary Scott Thompson and Erik Bergquist was very different from what was seen in theaters. It was not destined to be a success.
“When I received that script, that sh*t was set in new york, they were all italian kids, TRUE? I told them: ‘Brother, I will not accept it unless I can set it in Los Angeles and make[the characters]look like people I know from Los Angelesok?’ So I started writing about people of color, writing on the street, writing in the culture. Nobody knew shit about street racing at the time.”
Yesterday he also recounted anecdotes that inspired him to include them in the tape. He mentioned that he went to a garage and saw how the owners were handling fuel lines, injectors and so on. All of that seemed incredibly realistic to him and he believed that he would enrich the characters and make them feel close to the audience.
Indeed, all these elements helped the tape not be one more of the bunch and found a certain audience. However, the filmmaker considers that the narrative around his participation makes him see as if he had done nothing for Fast and furious.
“The biggest franchise in Hollywood, and I have nothing of it. I have nothing to show about her, nothing, because that’s how the industry works. It’s like people hijack the narratives, control them, and create new ones to empower themselves, right? And since I was always on the sidelines, I never went to the fucking parties, I never went to the meals and I don’t do any of that, the people who did were able to control and manage the narratives. I was always the dark, creative type.”
Unfortunately, it wasn’t the only project where his vision was discredited. 15 years after his failed experience in Fast and furious, David Ayer confronted Warner Bros and the disastrous editing he did for his Suicide Squad. Those kinds of bad experiences led him to steer his career in another direction, one where he can be in control of his creativity.
“Fuck all the guys in the middle, right? I understand. It depends on me. I have to rescue myself, right? I can complain about getting shot at and about the rounds I’ve taken throughout my career. I have to rescue myself and create an ecology where being creative is safe for me, and that’s it. And that is what I do now ”, she finished.
Recently, Ayer has given slight hints that his cut of Suicide Squad can become a reality. Although the damage is already done, it would be a courtesy gesture and would serve to show if he had a better movie than the one released in theaters. As to Fast and furiousDo you think those realistic elements and the culture it presented were the keys to success?
Juan Jose Cruz I am one of those who always defended Robert Pattinson as Batman and can see the same movie in the theater up to 7 times. My guilty pleasure? Low budget horror movie.