For a long time, Universal Pictures’ Fast and Furious series was a guilty pleasure. Then, sometime around the release of Fast Five, I gave up any pretensions I had and became a full-on fanboy for this ridiculously entertaining movie franchise that brings together the most charismatic action stars and the most ridiculous vehicle-based stunt sequences that money can buy. So yeah, I’m pretty excited for this summer’s Hobbs & Shaw, a spinoff from the franchise that pits Dwayne Johnson’s Hobbs and Jason Statham’s Shaw against Idris Elba’s sinister Brixton.
The much-anticipated first trailer’s set to drop on Friday, but ahead of that, to whet our appetites, Johnson has released a mini teaser trailer that you can check out below. Admittedly, it doesn’t reveal a whole lot about the film other than that Dwayne Johnson will indeed be looking kinda stern in it, but fortunately, he followed it up with a slightly more interesting picture showing him in character battling with a crew of fellow Samoans.
In his Instagram caption for the photo, Johnson wrote: “It’s my honor to produce and will always be much more than a movie to me.” He also teased that it’s “the biggest showdown the FAST & FURIOUS franchise has ever seen.” It’s a pretty striking photo as well, and an indication that the spinoff will share the franchise’s tendency for globetrotting action.
As we mentioned above, the full trailer for Hobbs & Shaw is set to release on Friday, at which point, I hope we get a good look at Idris Elba’s villainous Brixton. Johnson’s described Elba’s character as being “the baddest, most diabolical, most dominant and coolest bad guy the Fast & Furious franchise has ever seen” and that he’s been “kickin’ the shit outta me for 14 hrs daily.” Those are big claims to make, but of all the action franchises out there, Fast & Furious is the rare one that tends to put its money where its mouth is. As such, you can color us very, very excited.