The Playlist just yesterday announced that the runtime for the next installment in the Fast & Furious franchise, The Fate of the Furious (2017), is rumored to be 160 minutes. That’s right: Two hours and forty minutes (for those who don’t do math). Unsurprisingly, this is the longest runtime for this series yet.
Whether you’re a fan or not, let’s just give you an idea of the average runtime of these films, just for kicks and giggles.
The Fast and the Furious (2001): 1 hr, 46 min
2 Fast 2 Furious (2003): 1 hr, 47 min
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006): 1 hr, 44 min
Fast & Furious (2009): 1 hr, 47 min
Fast Five (2011): 2 hr, 11 min
Fast & Furious 6 (2013): 2 hr, 10 min
Furious 7 (2015): 2hr, 17 min
We’re talking at least a good 20 minutes more than the last film (taking into account approximations and end credits).
The last time we saw all of these characters was in the box office smash Furious 7, with an emotional sendoff to actor Paul Walker. The Fate of the Furious centers around Dom (Vin Diesel) going rogue against his racing family, which oddly sounds similar to another summer blockbuster’s plot in Transformers: The Last Knight, releasing on June 23, 2017, where Optimus Prime turns evil, against his … loud metal-clanging robot family?
While these are just rumors, IMDb lists the same runtime on Furious’ page, which could be accurate or not, but I’m leading toward accurate. What does this long runtime mean for the film and the franchise as a whole? (Don’t ask the guy who wrote this article, who watched Fast & Furious (the fourth film) thinking it was the very first one and found himself very confused just ten minutes in, not knowing who any of these characters were.) One might think that this is going to be so long because it is clearly the last in the series. Um, no. Wishful thinking. Fast & Furious 9 is scheduled to release on April 19, 2019, followed by Fast & Furious 10, scheduled to release on April 2, 2021.
All kidding aside, the series must be doing something right to be on their eighth film with nine and ten on their way. They’ve been keeping up their two-year release gap since 2009, which is quite admirable. Let’s just hope that, if these rumors are true, that this movie can keep our attention that long. No problem … right? Unless you get carsick.
The Fate of the Furious is racing to theaters on April 14, 2017.
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I am a graduate of Azusa Pacific University with a BA in Cinematic Arts. I am an aspiring film historian and film critic, and actively seeking full time job opportunities in the entertainment industry.