Justin Lin Reportedly Quit “Fast X” After A “Major Disagreement” With Vin Diesel

May 4, 2022 / Posted by:

The tenth Fast and Furious movie, Fast X, is being split into two movies–but they may wanna rethink that plan because pulling the first film off seems to be a bit of a struggle, so I can’t imagine doing this twice. The Hollywood Reporter says that director, Justin Lin, announced on social media that he made the “difficult decision” to leave the movie–but it seems the true tea is that it wasn’t that difficult. It seems that after a huge blowout over script changes, Justin quit that bitch, storming out and slamming the door. I’m sure that it wasn’t ten minutes before Vin Diesel was texting him pictures of the dearly departed Paul Walker to guilt him back in.

Fast X has high expectations since the last one made over $700 million at the global box office (although, it was one of the lowest earners in the franchise) So the final outing has to be big, and this one is so far clocking in with a $300 million budget–$100 million of which is dedicated to the seven- and eight-figure salaries of big names like Charlize Theron, Jason Momoa, and Brie Larson, as well as the long-running main cast Michelle Rodriguez, Ludacris, Tyrese Gibson, and Jordana Brewster. Not to mention Vin’s who is raking in the most. So the movie is costing a lot and it’s actually on pause right now as Universal scrambled to find a director after Justin quit because he couldn’t handle Vin anymore. Hey, Justin lasted way longer than The Rock ever could. via THR:

Lin was handling writing duties on the movie and believed he had a locked script going into it. Universal and Diesel had other thoughts. A key location that had been secured was cut due to its Eastern Europe location amid the war in Ukraine. And the movie still hadn’t cast one of its villains yet. On top of that, even as Lin tried to draw lines in the sand, the studio said it would be sending a writer to London to polish dialogue for some of the actors, a move that was expected but apparently not welcome by Lin at that time, sources say.

The constantly moving target proved too much for the seasoned Lin, who on April 23 had a “major disagreement” with Diesel. The four-person meeting had begun with Diesel having new notes. It ended with a slammed door. “Justin finally had enough and said, “This movie is not worth my mental health,”” says one source. Both Lin and Diesel declined comment for this story.

A Universal spokesperson told THR: “Any creative differences leading to Justin Lin’s exit were with the studio, not with fellow producers, cast or crew.”

After Justin’s fight with Vin on April 23, Justin agreed to stay on as producer. And on April 26, Justin gave his exit statement on Twitter:

Apparently working on the FF movies is a nightmare, and insiders say that the writers wrote random action sequences for Vin to approve and Justin just had to make it work. Justin’s exit is also costing the studio more than a million bucks a day from putting crew and locations on standby. Luckily, director Louis Leterrier, who has worked on Clash of the Titans and also on The Transporter movies, is the new man with the worst job in Hollywood and is reportedly close to closing a deal this week. One source says that Louis has actually always been in contention for other FF directing gigs in the past.

Justin’s exit is also HILARIOUS considering that a week ago Vin posted a video to Instagram about filming starting and in it, asks Justin what it feels like for the movie production to start and Justin replies: “Feels like the beginning of an epic ending.” SURE WAS! Here’s the hostage video:

I’m sure that Justin Lin stepped out of whatever meeting with Universal he had where he signed some papers to leave as director and was RELIEVED! I bet he looked up to the sky and felt the sun on his skin like Nicole Kidman leaving her lawyer’s office after divorcing Tom Cruise. Freedom tastes sweet!

Pic: RobinLori/INSTARimages

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