‘Fast and Furious 7’: A Billion Dollar Tribute To Paul Walker

With the release of the latest Fast and Furious movie, the cast of Furious 7 said goodbye to co-star Paul Walker, who was tragically killed in a car crash in late 2013. The crew of the last Fast and Furious installment were about half way through the filming of that movie when Paul Walker was killed.

Viewers will finally learn how the crew of Fast and Furious wrap up the story line for Paul Walker, who played an undercover cop turned bad guy, Brian O’Connor. During later installments, Walker’s character marries the sister of Vin Diesel’s character, Dominic Toretto.

According to Vin Diesel in Philstar, this latest installment is worthy of an Oscar nomination.

“Do I shy away from aiming high? No, I don’t. And yet we all know that there’s a little stigma towards action films, we know it, we’ve heard people complain about it, we’ve heard Marvel complain about it, we’ve heard DC complain about it, and now Harry Potter, Hunger Games, Batman has never gotten a shot at that.”

This latest installment of Fast and Furious is the seventh in the longest-running franchise in Universal history at 15 years. It is also the richest with a combined total in ticket sales of $2.3 billion.

In this latest entry to the series, Dominic and his crew have defeated Owen Shaw and his team. Dominic and company are now able to return to the United States so they can live the normal lives they wanted. The new enemy they face is Owen’s older brother, Deckard Shaw, who wants revenge for the death of his brother.

This is the first of the series to be directed by James Wan, who made his name directing horror movies like Saw and The Conjuring. From Australia, Wan replaces the previous director Justin Lin, who stepped down.

In an interview published in the Boston Globe, James Wan spoke about Fast and Furious, Paul Walker and a strange rumor that Justin Bieber would replace Paul Walker for the rest of the film.

“That was a stupid rumor right after all of this happened, and I really couldn’t respond to it. It blew up on social media, and I just bit my lip. I didn’t want to say anything then. Now that the movie’s done, I can actually talk about it.”

Cody and Caleb Walker, Paul’s brothers, along with actor John Brotherton, who is similar in size to Walker, helped finish the film. Although the crew had to go back to the drawing board to rewrite the script to finish the film, the crew agreed it had to be finished as it was Walker’s last film and his final legacy.

Fellow cast member, Michelle Rodriguez spoke highly of the late Walker.

“I’m going to celebrate him, and I’m going to celebrate everything that he represented about the celebration of life and the love of pushing life to its edge because there are individuals on this planet that can’t live otherwise, they can’t live ordinary lives cooped up hiding from danger and I’m one of those people and he was one of those people.”

Are you anxious to see how the crew finished the film and what happened to Brian O’Connor?

[Photo Credit Digital Trends]