Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham are sitting out of Fast & Furious 9 as Luke Hobbs and Deckard Shaw but director Justin Lin says there is a strong chance they could both return to the main franchise in Fast & Furious 10.
Dwayne Johnson became a franchise mainstay in what is arguably the best sequel of the bunch, Fast Five. Johnson went on to appear in the next three installments before heading over to the Fast spin-off, Hobbs & Shaw. He was joined by Jason Statham's Deckard Shaw, who entered the franchise during a cameo in Fast & Furious 6 before going on to be the main villain in Furious 7 followed by some character redemption in The Fate of the Furious. Both actors are missing in action in Fast 9 but, during a chat with "CinemaBlend", director Justin Lin was asked if he would bring back Hobbs & Shaw for Fast & Furious 10? While Lin didn't give a definitive answer, he did admit that he doesn't believe either character is gone for good. Here is what he had to say:
"I think that’s always been our approach… So many of the conversations I have is about characters that are not even in there, but are still, obviously, they are living and breathing in this universe. On this one, when I came back, I was thinking a lot about Hobbs and Shaw, and all of the other characters. I never think of them as being gone, for sure."
There have been virtually no plot details revealed about Fast & Furious 10 except that it will conclude the franchise. From what I understand, the film will be split up into two movies that will be shot back-to-back but I'm not too clear on if that's just considered the tenth film split into two movies or if we're simply getting a Fast 10 and Fast 11 to wrap up the saga. It's a multi-billion dollar franchise so they can pretty much go about this any way they want to. I do know that it would be silly not to bring either of these characters back. Vin Diesel did famously have an off-screen feud with Johnson back in 2019 but that has since been resolved, with Johnson publicly thanking his co-star and hinting at a return in the tenth installment. Tyrese Gibson and Johnson also had their beef for a bit when the latter decided to do Hobbs & Shaw before the core group could make another Fast film but that has also recently been squashed. It appears that all is well in the Fast family so bringing this duo back just seems like a matter of time. Plus, I think fans would like to see Deckard Shaw and Sung Kang's Han come face to face to bring some validation to the #JusticeForHan movement.
Do YOU want to see Hobbs and Shaw return in Fast and Furious 10?