The eleventh installment of the Fast & Furious franchise, which also serves as the finale of the main storyline, has finally made substantial progress. Star and producer Vin Diesel revealed to Variety at the franchise's 25th-anniversary screening event in Los Angeles on Monday that filming is scheduled to begin this December—provided a specific requirement from the studio is met.
In the interview, Diesel stated that this final chapter underwent four rounds of rewrites by different writing teams and a four-year development cycle before finally resulting in what he considers a script "worthy of a grand finale." When he read the complete script a few weeks ago, he was so emotionally moved that he shed tears.
Before the screening event began that day, Diesel emotionally shared this anecdote with the audience: "Halfway through reading, I shed a tear. By the time I finished the script we had meticulously crafted for you over four years, I couldn't stop crying. I had to tell everyone, my sister said to me, 'Stop crying, bro.' I just want to say, sometimes, even the toughest men need to cry."
Despite Diesel's confidence, the actual progress of the film remains to be seen. This past July, he hinted that the sequel might have already quietly started filming, which later turned out to be a smokescreen for a World Cup promotional video. Adding to the confusion, director Louis Leterrier revealed in an interview earlier this month that he had not yet read the script that brought Diesel to tears—with only a few months remaining until the planned start of production, the timeline appears quite tight.
Fast & Furious 11 is currently scheduled for release on March 17, 2028, marking the end of a franchise that has spanned over two decades. As one of Universal Pictures' longest-running and most profitable IPs (with a global cumulative box office of $7.3 billion), the next few months will be a critical window to determine whether the finale of the "Fast" family can officially kick off as planned.