Vin Diesel is promising “Fast and Furious” fans that the late Paul Walker‘s Brian O’Conner will return for the final film in the blockbuster franchise. Diesel, who stars in and produces the films, said during an appearance at Walker‘s brother Cody Walker’s car festival Fuel Fest that the eleventh “Fast and Furious” feature will have a reunion between characters Dominic Toretto (Diesel) and O’Conner (Walker).
Walker died in 2013 in a car accident prior to the completion of the seventh film. His brothers Cody and Caleb served as stand-ins for his character in that film, which used CGI and VFX to give Walker’s character a sendoff as he drove off into the sunset. The character of Brian O’Conner exited the franchise at the end of “Furious 7” with the explanation that he was settling down with his family, including Jordana Brewster’s Mia Toretto, who is Diesel’s onscreen sister.
Now, Diesel is detailing just how O’Conner will return to cap off the franchise. “Just yesterday I was with Universal Studios… The studio said to me, ‘Vin, can we please have the finale of ‘Fast and Furious’ [in] April 2027?’ I said, ‘Under three conditions because I’ve been listening to my fan base,’” he said. “The first is to bring the franchise back to L.A. The second thing was to return to the car culture, to the street racing. The third thing was reuniting Dom and Brian O’Conner. That is what you’re going to get in the finale.”
It’s unclear yet whether this planned eleventh feature will be a single, final installment or not. Diesel previously told Fandango in 2023 that the tenth film, “Fast X,” could be a trilogy. “Without giving away too much, I can say this, going into making this movie, the studio had asked if this could be a two-parter and after the studio saw this Part One, they said, ‘Could you make “Fast X: The Finale” a trilogy?,’” Diesel said.
The tenth feature also saw the franchise debut of Paul Walker’s daughter Meadow Walker, who joined Diesel onscreen for the first time exactly a decade after her father’s death. “Thanks to my dad, I was born into the ‘Fast’ family,” Walker wrote on Instagram at the time. “I can’t believe now I get to be up there too with those who have been around to see me grow up… I am so blessed to be able to honor my father’s legacy and share this with him forever.”
And the Walker family is all for honoring Paul Walker’s character, too. His brother Caleb told the AP in 2018 that he hoped O’Conner would be in more films. “I just hope we get to — I don’t know — have a little cameo and bring Paul back to save the day and I get to help create that again,” Caleb said. “That’s my dream and I hope we get to do that in one of the future movies.”
Brother Cody added, “I think there could potentially be a way to do it. But it would take a lot of thought and it’d have to be tasteful.”