‘Fast And Furious 7’ Up For Best Picture In 2016? Star Vin Diesel Thinks It Should Happen

Fast and Furious 7 is making headlines because the film broke box office records with a $142 million opening weekend. While the the latest film in the street racing franchise is enjoying great success early on in its release, Vin Diesel, star of the film, is convinced that Furious 7 should be equally successful at the Oscars in 2016.

“Universal is going to have the biggest movie in history with this movie,” Diesel said in an interview with Variety. “It will probably win best picture at the Oscars, unless the Oscars don’t want to be relevant ever.”

Diesel went on to add that he isn’t alone in believing the movie can win big at the award ceremony.

“The head of the studio, Ron Meyer, often said when Fast 5 or Fast 6 came out, ‘If there was no number attached to these movies, they would be contenders for best picture.’ And when people see Furious 7, they are going to agree.”

While it is still yet to be seen if Fast and Furious 7 will get the nod from the Oscars nominating committee, the new film has certainly upped its game from previous installments. One aspect of the new movie that is garnering attention is the scene where vehicles are dropping from an airplane at 10,000 feet.

Incredibly, the film didn’t use any CGI for the scene, which meant that real cars were actually dropped out an airplane. Jack Gill, who coordinated the scene, discussed the logistics of putting together such a stunt with NPR.

“We talked about it for a long time before we actually went out there and decided to pull the trigger, because trying to get this many cars out of the plane together — and they all had to fall in succession right one right after another — if one falls a little faster than the other, you’ve got problems.”

Another aspect of the film that is receiving attention is the Paul Walker tribute video shown at the very end of the feature. Walker died in car accident in November 2013 when the vehicle he was riding in crashed into a power pole. Producers avoided making major adjustments to the movie by using a collection of old footage, stunt double and his brothers to complete the film with Walker.

According to The Wrap, the emotional video had many fans expressing their feelings on Twitter, while Diesel gave a blurry-eyed speech during the movie’s premiere in Hollywood.

“This movie is more than a movie… I’m going to tell you, last year it was really tough to come back to work.”

Fans can catch Fast and Furious 7 in theaters everywhere.

[Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images]