With its improbable stunts and gloriously cheesy dialogue, the Fast & Furious movies can succinctly be described as an octane-fueled, Saturday morning cartoon come to life. It looks like the franchise is leaning ever-further into that reputation with the announcement of an animated Netflix spinoff series. No, this is not an April Fool’s joke.
Produced by Vin Diesel, the show follows Dominic Toretto’s teenage cousin, Tony Toretto, and his band of vehicularly-gifted pals in their mission to “infiltrate an elite racing league serving as a front for a nefarious crime organization bent on world domination.” So Fast & Furious for kids, essentially.
It’ll be produced for Netflix by the animation boffins at DreamWorks, a studio whose streaming-cartoon resume includes Trollhunters, Spirit Riding Free, and the Madagascar-spinoff All Hail King Julien. Opening up Netflix to take a quick gander at those titles (marking the first time I came across a professional excuse to watch children’s programming) and looking at the single teaser photo released gives us a pretty good idea of what to expect, animation-wise.
According to Netflix Vice President of Kids and Family, Melissa Cobb, “The Fast & Furious franchise is a global phenomenon beloved by audiences of all ages, and we can’t wait to get started on the new animated series that will capture the action, heart, humor and global appeal of the feature films.”
Speaking of the feature films, action veteran David Leitch was recently announced as the director of 2019’s Hobbs and Shaw spinoff starring Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham. The next two mainline Fast movies are scheduled to drop in 2020 and 2021. The franchise has also recently expanded into live stadium shows and theme park rides.
Look for the inevitable Tokyo Drift Broadway musical to appear sometime in 2024.