While writing F6st and the Furious, director Justin Lin, screenwriter Chris Morgan and star/producer Vin Diesel just couldn’t jam in all the story and character development they needed. Nay, that the story itself demanded. According to Diesel (via THR), they’ve decided to add a seventh movie into the franchise. “We have to pay off this story, we have to service all of these character relationships, and when we started mapping all that out it just went beyond 110 pages,” said Diesel. “The studio said, ‘You can’t fit all that story in one damn movie!’” Well, what were they expecting? The movies in this franchise have always been primarily about character arcs, emotional evolution, and providing audiences with a keyhole look into the soul of humanity. Plus, it’s helpful that Fast Five has made $626m worldwide so far. It seems crazy, but it’s wonderful to see such a dialogue-based, mature story being such a smash blockbuster commercially. Let’s all raise a glass to the intellectually nuanced F7st 7nd F7r777s! That is, if you can hear yourself thinking over the crunching of popcorn and revving engines.

We don’t often report on casting rumors so far in advance of production, but seeing as the very fun Fast Five hit DVD and Blu-ray today it seem fitting that we pass along this item about its inevitable follow-up. Well, two items actually. According to the fine folks at Twitch, Universal is hoping to move forward next year on filming two back-to-back installments of the Fast & Furious series to take place throughout Europe. It only makes sense as Fast Five was both the highest grossing and most entertaining of the bunch. The plan is for Justin Lin to return for part six and for Peter Jackson to take over directing duties on part seven. That’s not strictly true, but Jackson seems pretty comfortable being attached to one half of simultaneously filmed epics so I figured I’d suggest it now. It won’t happen, but how curious are you now to see a Jackson directed muscle car movie? The second piece of info uncovered by Twitch is that the franchise producers are hoping to lure Jason Statham into their fold for one or both of the films. Adding him to the mix seems like a no-brainer especially as the series heads to Europe. Statham is British after all, but more relevant to the matter at hand is his status as a follicle-challenged ass kicker who knows his way around a car. Can you even imagine the sweat and testosterone overload sure to occur when Statham, Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson go [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a nightly movie news and tidbit (that word makes it giggle) column that is back in full swing this week. A special thanks to Cole Abaius for picking up the reigns last week while usual author Neil Miller was locked away in a 3×3 ft. cell in preparation for Fantastic Fest. No, there was not a reason for it. And yes, he has emerged ready for a bare-knuckle boxing match (or two). But first, the news… We begin tonight with a shot of Christian Bale and Terrence Malick walking through the crowds of the Austin City Limits music festival this past weekend here in Austin, TX. It caused quite a commotion with the crowds, many of whom were there to see acts like Bright Eyes, Stevie Wonder and Kanye West. As a surprise, they got T. Malick in that silly hat.

In a stunning development that has me thinking Vin Diesel would be the perfect choice for a For Love or Money remake, the actor has taken to his Facebook page to present his fans with a conundrum he’s facing when trying to get another Pitch Black sequel off the ground. I’ll let him tell it in his own words: “D T the writer/director just landed in New York with the good news. We can start filming this summer. However, there is a catch… in order for us to make a true R rated film, I must work for scale upfront. Not unlike the Find Me Guilty experience (which I wouldn’t have changed for the world).” I have to assume that the D T he is speaking of is Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick director David Twohy, and it sounds like the rest of the post is Diesel saying he wouldn’t want to do another Riddick sequel unless it was R-rated, and he’s willing to take a pay cut to make that happen. Alright Vinnie! I fully support any movement to get action films planted firmly back into R-rated territory. But wait, that’s not all. A probable pay cut isn’t the only hurdle that might be in front of another Riddick movie happening. Diesel goes on to say, “Money is always second to art, integrity and spirit… but the real issue is deeper. Can I suspend my life, to momentarily venture to that dark place… called Riddick.” What’s this? Has [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

Good news for a once bankrupt and destitute MGM, their first new production since hitting skid row is on the way. And, perhaps poetically, their new production teams them up with a man who is also on his way back up in the business. The Machine has signed Vin Diesel to star and produce. At the beginning of the 2000s many people saw Diesel as the next king of the action movie genre, but his career never really worked out that way, and Diesel saw his star power fade a bit over the past ten years. With the release and huge success of this year’s Fast Five, Diesel has another chance to make it to the top of the mountain. Could this be the smash hit that will finally anoint him as Hollywood royalty? The Machine sounds like kind of a cross between The Terminator and The Iron Giant. Those are two things that I love, so if they can find a balance in tone, I would say that this project has some real potential. Diesel will play a government weapon that was built to look like a human being, and who has been deactivated for many years. As this film opens, the killer robot is found, reactivated, and befriended by a small child. Presumably a lot of bonding happens after that, then followed up by a big action sequence where the government comes to try and reacquire the machine. Kind of like E.T., only Diesel’s character will love steroids [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr gets in his car and hits the road with a can of NOS energy drink and his shaved head. Too bad his car is a 2006 Dodge minivan with collapsible seats and a back-seat DVD player for the kids to use. He didn’t stand a chance in the street racing against Vin Diesel and Paul Walker. After recovering from the cold, hard truth that The Rock stole his look for Fast Five, Kevin goes stag to Prom and suffers through the direct-to-DVD theatrical release of Hoodwinked Too!: Hood vs. Evil.

Welcome back to Junkfood Cinema; we get furious when we don’t get our fast food. Before you could slam on the brakes, you managed to crash head-on into one of the internet’s most obnoxious dividing walls. Every week I put the pedal to the floor, a floor almost entirely obscured by half-eaten Zero bars and discarded McRib wrappers, to bring you the very best in the very worst cinema has to offer. I will drive a truckload of mockery right up the unsuspecting film’s tailpipe before totally switching lanes and filling your eye sockets with premium unleaded love for that very same lemon. Finally, to really drive home this absurd running metaphor, I will supercharge your taste buds by pairing the film with a greasy snack that will leave tread marks on your esophagus all the way down. This week’s treat: The Fast and the Furious

Let’s cut to the chase here shall we? Fast Five is a stupid, overly long, and poorly written movie with moronic dialogue, plot contrivances big enough to fit both of the bald giants above through, and a complete disregard for right, wrong, and the sanctity of human life. More on all of that in a minute, but the other half of this equation is that it also features some kick-ass, high energy, destructive-as-hell action scenes that rattle the walls of the theater and happily remind you that there are still filmmakers capable of crafting spectacular cinematic mayhem without relying on CGI to do all the heavy lifting. So you can see my dilemma…

Welcome back to Junkfood Cinema: stop touching yourself. Our fearless leader, Brian Salisbury, is taking the week off, so I’ll be your guide through the fat and cholesterol laden cinematic jungle. And I assure you Mr. Salisbury’s absence had nothing to do with that blinding chest pain … he’s probably still alive. Every week our intrepid host takes you, dear reader, on a perilous journey through a particular film, mocking it like a redheaded stepchild and then pointing out all the reasons it’s cool anyway. To put the bacon on the cupcake (what, you don’t put bacon on your cupcakes?) he’ll finish things off by choosing a delicious, health-defying concoction for you to stuff in your wet mouth. Like Lord Salisbury, I also revel in all the fried and battered goodness that movie history has to offer us and I’m steering this ship in one direction: up! Like the Friday the 13th and Leprechaun films of yore, Junkfood Cinema is blasting right past the shark and into the final frontier of outer space. That’s right, kids. This week’s target is none other than Vin Diesel Growls in Space with Glowing Eyes aka Pitch Black.

Lets face it, there isn’t going to be anything inventive about the story being told in Universal’s Fast Five. Vin Diesel and Paul Walker are going to band together with some familiar faces — Ludacris, Tyrese Gibson and that one Asian guy — and do some nefarious things at high speeds. There will be a lesson in the end, something about how being bad is sometimes a way to learn how to be good. And that brotherhood is essential to the criminal’s likability. It’s all stuff we’ve seen before. But take note, friends, as this one also includes a decidedly burly, extremely bearded Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. And he’s out to beat some ass.

Unflinching in their drive to keep the Fast and Furious franchise on the road, Universal has unleashed the first trailer for the upcoming fifth film, the appropriately titled Fast Five. The film will reunite Paul Walker, Vin Diesel, Ludacris, Jordana Brewster and Tyrese Gibson with director Justin Lin, the man responsible for the last two films. It will also add a heaping dose of large, burly Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as the man sent to track down the team of fast-driving, sex-having, parkour-using thieves through the streets of Rio de Janeiro. According to this first trailer, the whole thing will be unquestionably ridiculous.

I would love nothing more than to simply print the title above and allow you all to giggle like little school girls who just saw a kid pee his pants in 3rd period English, but there’s more to the story.

After delivering four fuel-filled installments in the Fast and Furious series, writer Chris Morgan appears to still have more in the tank. That’s a car joke, by the way.

It’s been a few days, sure, but you know that you can’t resist another wonderfully packed edition of the Early Edition…

The folks at Universal Pictures have released two new featurettes for their newly release actioner Fast & Furious — and get this, they are faced pace rollercoaster rides of emotion.

Kevin Carr reviews this week’s new movies: Fast & Furious, Adventureland and Gigantic.

The Fat Guys bemoan the fact that certain studios have been withholding screenings of their films, while Neil unleashes a fit of rage against the quirky indie comedy Gigantic. He’ll never look at his dear Zooey Deschanel the same again.

What happens when you bring back Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker) and Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) back together eight years after their first run together in The Fast and the Furious? You end up “Supermaning that hoe,” Souldja Boy style.

Nine emails and seven alerts on Twitter — that is how many times I’ve heard about this awesome new fan made trailer for Thundercats this afternoon. And after one or two viewings, I got to thinking that its possible — though remotely — that this trailer could be better than any actual Thundercats movie, should one actually get made.

Columbia Pictures is in talks with producer Joe Roth for a new version of xXx, one that would bring back star Vin Diesel and director Rob Cohen. The question is: why?