Fast & Furious TV series finally wins a 2028 green light
Five months after Vin Diesel teased it onstage, the first Fast & Furious TV series is officially a go. Peacock has greenlit a live-action show based on the street-racing franchise, with Diesel executive producing, Deadline reported on Thursday, Oct. 1. The Universal Television series is set to premiere in 2028.
The films have grossed more than $7 billion worldwide over 25 years, according to Deadline.
Who is making the Fast & Furious TV series
Mike Daniels and Wolfe Coleman wrote the pilot and will run the show as co-showrunners. Daniels has producer credits on Peacock’s “Ponies” and worked on “Sons of Anarchy,” “Shades of Blue” and NBC’s upcoming “The Rockford Files” reboot. Coleman executive produced “9-1-1: Lone Star” and also worked on “Shades of Blue.”
On the Fast & Furious TV series, Diesel will executive produce with Sam Vincent of his One Race banner, Neal H. Moritz and Pavun Shetty of Original Film, Jeff Kirschenbaum and longtime franchise writer Chris Morgan. Plot details have not been released.
Diesel’s upfront promise of 4 shows
Diesel first revealed the TV push at NBCUniversal’s upfront presentation in New York in May. “The news that I have here today is that Peacock is launching four shows from the ‘Fast and Furious’ universe,” he said, as quoted by Variety.
The reality was more modest than four shows. Variety reported at the time that only one Fast & Furious TV series was actually in the works, with others in various stages of development at Universal TV. Per Deadline, the other three projects come from Nick Wootton (“The Endgame”) and Charmaine DeGraté (“House of the Dragon”), “Griselda” showrunner Ingrid Escajeda and “Lucifer” showrunner Joe Henderson.
Diesel said he waited to move into TV until Universal Pictures chief Donna Langley also took charge of NBCUniversal’s television operation. “That’s when I knew that the integrity of the characters, the international appeal, what makes us all feel like family will be protected in the TV space,” he said at the event, per Deadline.
A 2028 collision with ‘Fast Forever’
The 2028 target for the Fast & Furious TV series puts it in the same year as “Fast Forever,” the 11th and final film in the main saga, which Universal has dated for March 17, 2028. Diesel has called its screenplay “the best script I have read in decades,” The Hollywood Reporter noted.
This won’t be the franchise’s first time on the small screen. Netflix ran the animated “Fast & Furious Spy Racers” for six seasons from 2019 to 2021, Variety pointed out, but Peacock’s project is the first live-action series, giving the franchise room to explore characters the movies rarely had time for.
Cast members already have pitches
The news caps a 25th-anniversary year for 2001’s “The Fast and the Furious,” which starred Diesel as Dominic Toretto, Paul Walker as Brian O’Conner, Jordana Brewster as Mia and Michelle Rodriguez as Letty. Universal staged a midnight screening at Cannes in May and an anniversary event in Los Angeles on Aug. 17.
At the Los Angeles event, Brewster told The Hollywood Reporter, “I so admire the Taylor Sheridan universe, so I feel like we can really do that with television too.” Her pitch would follow Mia and Brian’s son and daughter: “see what hell it is to raise kids that have Mia’s genes, Brian’s genes and Dom’s genes.”
Rodriguez, speaking about “Fast Forever,” told the outlet she hopes the franchise returns to its car-culture roots and leaves the space plots of “F9” behind. For more on where the films have been heading, read our earlier report on Diesel’s Fast 11 update, or browse more TV and streaming news.