10 Fast & Furious Franchise Facts That Will Blow Your Mind

The series has seven instalments (with more on the way) and has made over £1billion at the box office.

With a septet of flicks at our disposal, there are plenty of great Easter eggs scattered throughout. Here are some of the best.

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Ludacris’s cognac

It’s pretty clear that F&F is not averse to a bit of product placement, which is why it’s not all that surprising in ‘Fast Five’ that the bottle of cognac on show is Conjure, aka the brand owned by the actor/rapper who plays Tej.

Many of the cars on show in the movies belong to Paul Walker

The late actor was a huge car nut and loved to collect and fix up old motors, as well as being a part-time professional racing driver himself. On top of doing several of the driving stunts in the films, he lent some of his collection to be used in the movies.

The title comes from a 1955 movie

Even though the franchise is based on an article about street racing, the title was actually bought from the owners of this Fifties movie produced by schlock king Roger Corman.

In it, a man wrongly imprisoned for murder breaks out of jail and goes on the run in a sports car, desperate to evade police and clear his name.

Have you seen Vin Diesel’s short film set in the F&F universe?

Included as a Blu-ray extra on the fourth movie’s home entertainment release, this 20-minute short is sometimes known as ‘Fast & Furious 3.5’.

Written and directed by Vin Diesel himself, it acts as part-backstory/part-prequel to ‘Fast & Furious’, which was the official return by Diesel to the franchise after a brief cameo in ‘Tokyo Drift’.

It shares a location with ‘Point Break’

Both F&F and the original ‘Point Break’ share a love of extreme sports as well as plenty of other plot points, which is why it’s appropriate that in the first movie, a scene takes place at Neptune’s Net restaurant in Malibu, where Lori Petty’s character Tyler worked in the 1991 surf classic.

Natalie Portman almost played Mia

Post-‘Star Wars’ prequels, Portman has admitted she found it hard to get hired. That must be the reason why she auditioned to play Brian’s love interest, in a part that was eventually taken by Jordana Brewster.

The films were a crash course in driving for some

When you see her careening expertly down the road, it seems remarkable to think that Michelle Rodriguez didn’t have a driving licence before taking the role of Letty in the first film. She wasn’t the only one. Devon Aoki, who starred in the first sequel, was also a non-driver before being cast.

What order SHOULD you watch them in?

Obviously there have been seven movies, but the release order is not actually the chronological one within the films’ timeline.

If want to watch them ‘correctly’, then you need to go: 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 3, 7.

That’s why (SPOILER ALERT!) Han dies in ‘Tokyo Drift’ – the third release – but then comes back for the ones until 7 when we find out he is killed in Japan by Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham).

One of the character names gives a wink to ‘Star Wars’

Speaking of Han, who’s played by Korean-American actor Sung Kang, his full name is Han Seoul-Oh. Geddit?

The director plugs his own work in the first film

‘The Fast & The Furious’ was directed by Rob Cohen back in 2001, who then left the franchise to go make ‘xXx’ amongst others. But he’s not too proud to tout maybe his best film during a scene in which ‘Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story’ is seen playing on a television.

Starring Jason Scott Lee (no relation), it was a commercial failure, but is well worth checking out, especially the soundtrack.

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Photos: StarTraks/Rex_Shutterstock/Sipa Press/Everett/Moviestore/Universal