Vin Diesel Is Gearing Up for a Live ‘Fast and Furious’ Arena Tour
Here’s a question for you: is it time to add Vin Diesel to the list of actors whose career is defined entirely by a single film franchise? Sure, Diesel has shown up in other successful movies throughout his careers — Saving Private Ryan, The Iron Giant, and Guardians of the Galaxy have all been critical and commercial successes, not to mention his more niche productions like Find Me Guilty and the Riddick movies — but none hold a candle to his work on the Fast and Furious franchise. He’s been producer, screenwriter, and star of those movies for over 16 years now, eclipsing his contributions to other films; I mean, nobody goes up to William Shatner and praises him for his work in Judgment at Nuremberg, right?
And if you needed further proof that Diesel is leaning into his legacy as Dominic Toretto, how about the recent announcement that he’ll be participating in the upcoming Fast and Furious Live arena tour? We’ve known that Universal had something planned for 2018 since Variety wrote it up this past February, but earlier this week, Diesel posted a video on Facebook (via Vulture) making his involvement official:
Here’s the relevant quote for those who can’t watch the above:
As you know, my work with Fast and Furious never ends, which I’m grateful for because of you all. I am in New York, believe it or not, and we are filming something that is going to be pretty state of the art, something no one’s ever seen before, which is a live show.
Interesting! We’ve seen companies like Disney take the live show to new heights with their Disney on Ice series over the past couple of years, so I suppose it was only a matter of time before someone decided to try a version of that concept that would entice adults. As noted in a new Variety article, the live show will include “re-creations of some of the stunts and cars in the eight-film franchise,” making this kind of a monster truck rally for movie fans? If they decide to have cars parachute down from a carrier jet, they can charge pretty much whatever they want. I’ll be there. And so will Vin Diesel, because he never turns his back on his (Universal) family.