Fast X: Vin Diesel says he can’t imagine franchise ending without saying goodbye to Paul Walker

After Paul Walker died while still in the midst of shooting Furious 7, the production used CG doubles and Walker’s own brothers to give Brian O’Conner a touching sendoff. Flash forward a decade, and the Fast & Furious saga is ready to cross the finish line… but Vin Diesel can’t see it happening without getting to say another goodbye to Paul Walker.

“That moment in 2013 when the world was struggling with his loss, the studio made a very bold and righteous and daring decision to keep Brian O’Conner alive,” Vin Diesel told Total Film. “I will give you this without spoiling anything: I couldn’t imagine this saga ending without truly saying goodbye to Brian O’Conner.” Most have expected that we hadn’t seen the last of Brian O’Conner, particularly as Paul Walker’s family has said that they’re open to bringing his character back digitally. Although these types of digital resurrections aren’t always embraced, I feel like Fast & Furious fans would like to see Vin Diesel and Paul Walker share the screen one more time.

As the upcoming Fast X ties into the events of Fast Five, director Louis Leterrier has previously said we will see Brian O’Conner return in reused footage from the 2011 sequel. “Well, Brian is very much alive in the world of Fast & Furious, and they’ve teased him a lot in the previous movies,” Louis Leterrier explained. “In 9, we see the car coming. It’s something that is planned. This movie jumps back and forth between the past and the present. You will see Brian in the past, you won’t see Brian in the present. It’s something that everybody has to be on board with. The Walker family is still very much a part of this franchise, you’ll see how in this movie. It just has to be the right moment, the right tone. I think what James Wan did at the end of 7 was perfect. The tone was perfect. Brian has to re-enter the franchise as perfectly as he left it.”

Fast X will kick off the grand finale of the Fast & Furious franchise, and that has allowed Louis Leterrier to take a few more risks than previous movies. “That’s the beauty of arriving near the end of this franchise: I don’t have to go, ‘Oh, well, these characters will live forever,’” Leterrier said. “No. They might not, because it’s the end. Only in westerns do cowboys gallop out into the sunset. This is definitely different. It allowed me some freedom to raise the stakes even more than they’ve been raised before.” Michelle Rodriguez recently teased that Fast X would end on a shocking cliffhanger, so who knows what surprise the movie has in store for us. Fast X will hit theaters on May 19th.