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28 March 2024

Full speed ahead as 'Fast and Furious 7' races towards Dubai

Published
By Bindu Suresh Rai

If there was ever any doubt, the casting call has confirmed what fans in Dubai had been hoping for, ever since ‘Fast and Furious’ star Vin Diesel confirmed the seventh instalment of the franchise will be headed to the Middle East.

Diesel, Paul Walker and Jason Statham are on a collision course for Dubai.

The Los Angeles casting call for the film confirmed the detail, with the announcement stating: ‘FF7 Productions in association with One Race Films and Original Film are now in pre-production on the action crime thriller feature film ‘Fast and Furious 7’, and casting calls will be going out in Los Angeles for starring, co-starring, and supporting roles.

‘Shooting will also take place in Tokyo and Dubai’.

And that’s not all it seems.

Some local talent from this city will also make it into the final cut, if the rest of the casting information is anything to go by.

The announcement continued: ‘Extras will be cast near the locations where filming will take place. Principal photography commences September 2013’.

The seventh film in the ridiculously popular and adrenaline charged franchise would bring back street racer and fugitive Dominic Toretto (Diesel, who is also co-producing this time), along with former FBI agent turned criminal Brian O’Conner (Walker) and Diplomatic Security Service agent, played by Dwayne Johnson.

‘Fast & Furious 6’, which released earlier this year, saw Dominic and his crew take down former British Special Forces soldier Owen Shaw.

In a post-credits scene one of Dominic’s crew, Han Seoul-Oh, is killed in a car chase.

The driver of the other car walks away and places a phone call to Dominic and says, “You don’t know me, but you’re about to.”

In ‘Fast and Furious 7’ the voice from the call is introduced as Owen Shaw’s brother Ian, played by Statham, who is out for revenge.

Additional casting for smaller speaking roles will take place in the shooting locations of Georgia and Louisiana in the US.

Malaysian-born Australian filmmaker James Wan has been brought on board to direct from an original screenplay written by Chris Morgan based on characters created by Gary Scott Thompson.

Wan will be the 5th director in a film series that has grossed over $2.27 billion worldwide at the box office.

Dubai would prove to be a fitting location for ‘Fast and Furious’ as Mahi Golchin-Depala, Managing Director of Ematterz, told Emirates 24|7 earlier, ahead of hosting a live event of the same name for car enthusiasts in the UAE.

She said: “ ‘Fast and Furious’ is one of the biggest money spinning franchises in the UAE; if you count in terms of box office receipts, then it would probably be in third place after ‘The Avengers’ and ‘Spider-Man’.”

Golchin-Depala added that it would go a long way in setting the premise for the film franchise’s seventh instalment here.

After Tom Cruise, Diesel could very well be chasing bad guys down the Meydan track.

Could Dubai Police’s fleet of supercars be in on the on-camera chase sequence? Let’s just wait and watch.

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