Cliff Notes – Paul Walker’s character returning to the Fast & Furious franchise 12 years after his death
- Vin Diesel has confirmed that one of his conditions for returning to the franchise is to bring back Brian O’Conner, played by the late Paul Walker.
- The method of Walker’s return remains unclear, but past films have utilised CGI and AI technology to incorporate his likeness posthumously.
- The release of Fast and Furious 11 has been delayed due to scheduling conflicts among the franchise’s star-studded cast.
Paul Walker’s character returning to Fast & Furious franchise 12 years after his death
Vin Diesel has teased that the late Paul Walker will feature in Fast and Furious 11 despite the actor’s tragic death in 2013.
The 57-year-old actor – who has portrayed Dominic ‘Dom’ Toretto in the Fast and Furious franchise since its debut in 2001 – admitted one of his ‘conditions’ for returning for a final movie in the series was to bring back Brian O’Conner, played by Walker.
The cop-turned-street racer was played by his friend until he died in a car accident in 2013, aged 40.
Walker was in the passenger seat of his Porsche Carrera GT – driven by friend Roger Rodas – when the vehicle spun out of control, crashing into two trees and exploding in a fireball.
Speaking at Fuel Fest in California over the weekend, Diesel said: ‘The studio said to me, “Vin, can we please have the finale of Fast and Furious [in] April 2027?
‘I said, “Under three conditions.” First, is to bring the franchise back to LA. The second thing was to return to the car culture, to the street racing. The third thing was reuniting Dom and Brian O’Conner.’
It is unclear how the character could return to the series, and Vin didn’t expand on whether archive footage or a digital creation would be used.
Walker was brought back to life in Fast 7, the seventh film in the Fast and Furious franchise, which was released in 2015.
In the final moments of the film, the actor can be seen driving away after giving his co-star one last smile.
The stunt was pulled off by using deep AI and CGI technology to place the late actor’s face onto his brother Cody Walker’s face, who was driving the car.
The actor’s daughter, Meadow Walker, had a cameo appearance in Fast X to ‘honour her father’s legacy.’
The last film in the franchise was Fast X, which was released in May 2023 and was initially advertised as the first of a two-part saga, but it is now unclear whether Fast 11 will pick up the story after such a lengthy delay.
Alan Ritchson was a newcomer in Fast X as Agent Aimes, and he recently admitted the next movie has been delayed because it takes so long to coordinate the schedules of stars in the franchise, such as Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and Jason Momoa.
Alan told Screen Rant: ‘We talk about it quite often. That is one of the biggest challenges that the franchise faces is that you’ve got a lot of guys like Dwayne and Vin and Momoa and myself and everybody’s super busy. So trying to get the stars to align so we can make that happen is a feat of nature.
‘So we’ll see how it goes, but this is a passion project for Universal and it’s one that I had a blast doing, so I’d love to get in there, and I’ll bring it to life again.’