Furious 7
Furious 7 (also known as Fast & Furious 7) is a 2015 American action film directed by James Wan and written by Chris Morgan. It is the sequel to "Fast & Furious 6" (2013), which serves as the seventh installment in the "Fast & Furious" franchise. The film stars Vin Diesel, Paul Walker (in his final film role), Dwayne Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, Jordana Brewster, Djimon Hounsou, Kurt Russell, and Jason Statham. In the film, Dominic Toretto, Brian O'Conner, and the rest of their team have returned to the United States to live normal lives after securing  amnesty for their past crimes, until Deckard Shaw, a rogue special forces assassin seeking to avenge his comatose younger brother, puts the team in danger once again. Plans for a seventh installment were first announced in February 2012 when Johnson stated that production on the film would begin after the completion of "Fast & Furious 6". In April 2013, Wan, predominantly known for horror films, was announced to direct the film. Casting showed the returns of Diesel and Walker that same month. Principal photography began that September in Atlanta, but was indefinitely suspended in November after Walker's death; filming resumed  in April 2014 and ended in July, with Walkers's brothers Caleb and Cody standing-in to complete his remaining scenes, causing delay to its 2015 release date; with other filming locations including Los Angeles, Colorado, Abu Dhabi, and Tokyo. With an estimated production budget of up to $250 million, it is one of the most expensive films ever made. "Furious 7" premiered in Los Angeles on April 1, 2015, and was theatrically released in the United States on April 3, exactly six years after the fourth film was released. Upon release, the film became a critical and box  office success, with praise being aimed at the film's action sequences and its emotional tribute to Walker. It grossed $397.6 million worldwide during its opening weekend, which was the highest of all-time at the time. The film grossed over $1.5 billion worldwide, making it the third highest-grossing film of 2015 and the fourth highest-grossing film of all time at the time of release. It was the highest grossing film of 2015 out of the domestic box office. Additionally, "Furious 7" became the highest-grossing film of the franchise in the first twelve days of  its theatrical release and ranks as the highest-grossing film in the franchise to date. A sequel, "The Fate of the Furious", was released in April 2017. Plot. After defeating Owen Shaw and securing amnesty for their past crimes, Dominic Toretto, Brian O'Conner and the team have returned to the United States to live normal lives. Brian accustoms himself to life as a father, while Dom tries to help Letty Ortiz regain her memory. Meanwhile, Owen Shaw's older brother, Deckard Shaw, breaks into the hospital where the comatose Owen is held in London, before breaking into the DSS office  in Los Angeles to extract profiles of Dom's crew. After revealing his identity, Deckard fights Luke Hobbs and escapes, detonating a bomb that severely injures Hobbs. Dom later learns from his little sister, Mia, that she is pregnant again and convinces her to tell Brian. However, a letter bomb, sent from Tokyo, explodes and destroys the Toretto house shortly after Han Lue, a member of Dom's team, is apparently killed by Deckard in Tokyo. Dom travels to Tokyo to retrieve Han's body and acquires the objects found at the crash site from Han's friend, Sean Boswell . As Dom, Brian, Tej Parker, and Roman Pearce mourn Han and Gisele Yashar at Han's funeral in Los Angeles, Dom confronts Deckard in an underground tunnel. Deckard flees when a covert ops team arrives and opens fire, led by a man only known as Mr. Nobody. At his air base of operations in El Segundo, California, Mr. Nobody says that he will help Dom in stopping Deckard if he helps him get God's Eye, a computer program that uses digital devices to track down a person, and save its creator, a hacker named Ramsey, from a Nigerian terrorist  named Mose Jakande. The team soon airdrops their off-road modified cars over the Caucasus Mountains in Azerbaijan, ambush Jakande's convoy and rescue Ramsey. They go to the Etihad Towers in Abu Dhabi and steal the flash drive containing the God's Eye chip from a billionaire hidden in a Lykan HyperSport. With God's Eye near telecommunications repeaters, Dom, Brian, Nobody, and his team track down and capture Deckard, but are ambushed by Jakande and his henchmen and forced to flee while Jakande obtains God's Eye. As Mr. Nobody is med-evaced, the team returns to Los  Angeles where Dom plans to singlehandedly fight Deckard alone, while Letty, Brian, Tej, and Roman resolve to protect Ramsey from Jakande. Later on, Brian promises Mia that he will fully dedicate himself to their family after he defeats Deckard and Jakande. As Jakande pursues Brian and the rest of the team with a stealth helicopter and an aerial drone, Ramsey attempts to hack into God's Eye. Hobbs, discovering the situation, leaves the hospital and destroys the drone with an ambulance. Brian battles and kills Jakande's henchman Kiet before hijacking a signal repeater tower, allowing Ramsey to regain control  of God's Eye and shut it down. Meanwhile, Dom and Deckard engage in a one-on-one brawl on top of a public parking garage. Jakande intervenes and attacks them both; Dom uses the distraction to defeat Deckard by causing part of the parking garage to collapse beneath him. Dom attempts to crash his Dodge Charger onto Jakande's helicopter; he leaves a bag of grenades on the helicopter and crashes on the rubble of the garage. Hobbs shoots the grenades, destroying the helicopter and killing Jakande. After Brian and Hobbs help Letty bring out Dom's unconscious body , she cradles him and fully regains her memories by remembering their wedding. Dom regains consciousness after Letty tells him this. Deckard is taken into custody by Hobbs and locked away in a secret, high-security CIA prison. Later, the rest of the team relax on a tropical beach. Brian and Mia play with their son Jack while Dom, Letty, Roman, Tej, and Ramsey look on, acknowledging that Brian is happily retired with his family. Dom drives away and Brian catches up with him. As Dom recalls his memories with Brian, the two bid each other farewell and drive off in  separate directions. Cast. John Brotherton portrays Sheppard, Mr. Nobody's right-hand man. Sung Kang and Gal Gadot appear in archive footage as Han and Gisele. Lucas Black reprises his role as Sean Boswell, an American street racer who lives in Tokyo whom Dom meets when he travels to Tokyo to claim the body of Han, a mutual friend of theirs killed by Shaw. In September, it was confirmed that Black had signed on to reprise his role as Boswell for "Furious 7" and two more installments. Elsa Pataky reprises her role as Elena Neves, a DSS agent and former  Rio police officer who moved to the United States to become Hobbs' new partner at the DSS. Luke Evans briefly reprises his role as Owen Shaw, Deckard's now comatose younger brother, from "Fast & Furious 6" (2013), and Noel Gugliemi reprises his role as Hector for a cameo appearance from "The Fast and the Furious" (2001). Ali Fazal portrays Safar, a friend of Ramsey to whom she sent the God's Eye for safekeeping. Fazal described his role as a cameo. Australian rapper Iggy Azalea (who also appears on the soundtrack) makes a cameo appearance as a racer at Race  Wars. American singer/rapper T-Pain appears as himself as he DJs a party in Abu Dhabi. Romeo Santos makes a cameo appearance as Mando, who shelters Mia in the Dominican Republic and Klement Tinaj appears as one of the Race Wars racers. Production. Development. On October 21, 2011, the "Los Angeles Times" reported that Universal Studios was considering filming two sequels—"Fast Six" and "Fast Seven"—back-to-back with a single storyline running through both films. Both would be written by Chris Morgan and directed by Justin Lin, who had been the franchise's writer and director, respectively, since "" (2006 ). On December 20, 2011, following the release of "Fast Five" (2011), Vin Diesel stated that "Fast Six" would be split into two parts, with writing for the two films occurring simultaneously. On the decision, Diesel said: 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  ...  The studio said, 'You can't fit all that story in one damn movie!' However, in an interview on February 15, 2012, Dwayne Johnson stated that the two intended sequels would no longer be  filmed simultaneously because of weather issues in filming locations, and that production on "Fast Seven" would only begin after the completion of "Fast Six". In April 2013, during the post-production of the retitled "Fast & Furious 6", Lin announced that he would not return to direct the seventh film, as the studio wanted to produce the film on an accelerated scheduled for release in summer 2014. This would have required Lin to begin pre-production on the sequel while performing post-production on "Fast & Furious 6", which he considered would affect the quality of the final product. Despite the usual  two-year gap between the previous installments, Universal chose to pursue a sequel quicker due to having fewer reliable franchises than its competitor studios. However, subsequent interviews with Lin have suggested that the sixth film was always intended to be the final installment under his direction. In April 2013, Australian director James Wan, predominantly known for horror films, was announced as the sequel's director, with Neal H. Moritz and Michael Fottrell returning to produce and Morgan returning to write the script, his fifth in the franchise. On April 16, 2013, Diesel announced that the sequel would be released on  July 11, 2014. In May 2013, Diesel said that the sequel would feature Los Angeles, Tokyo, and the Middle East as locations. Filming. Principal photography began in early September 2013 in Atlanta, with a casting call issued. Abu Dhabi was also a filming location; the production crew chose it over Dubai, as they would benefit from the Emirate's 30% rebate scheme. Pikes Peak Highway in Colorado was closed in September to film some driving sequences. On September 16, the production filmed with Paul Walker and the Kimsey twins, playing his son, Jack, in front of an Atlanta elementary school . Han's funeral scene was filmed at Oakland Cemetery, with extras needed for the scene being "hot, hip and trendy cool types of all ethnicities between the ages of 18 and 45". On the evening of September 19, Lucas Black joined the production for his sole scene with Diesel, in an Atlanta parking garage. Separate scenes with Walker also shot in the same location on the same night, including one half of a phone conversation between his character and Jordana Brewster's. On October 24, over a month into the film's production, Johnson tweeted he had started shooting for  the film after wrapping up on "Hercules". Five days later, Diesel posted the first photo of Johnson on the set, in the hospital scene. On November 30, Walker, who portrayed Brian O'Conner, died in a single-vehicle accident. The next day, Universal announced that production would continue after a delay that would allow the filmmakers to rework the film. On December 4, Universal put production on hold indefinitely. Wan later confirmed that the film had not been cancelled. On December 22, Diesel announced that the film would be released on April 10, 2015. On February 27, 2014, "The Hollywood Reporter  reported that filming would resume on April 1, and that the cast and crew had headed to Atlanta to prepare for about eight more weeks of shooting. Principal photography ended on July 10. Stunts. The airdrop" sequence was conceived by stunt coordinator, Spiro Razatos, who also supervised on the franchise's two previous installments; "Fast Five" and "Fast & Furious 6". Razatos told "Business Insider" that he wanted to rely more on real stunts rather than CGI because he wanted the whole sequence to "feel real" and fulfill audience's expectations. The stunt took months of prep-solving problems. Cameras needed  to be mounted onto cars in a way that they would not be destroyed when the cars landed, and the crew had to figure out a safe way to get the cars out of the plane. They performed a dry run with a single car falling out of a plane and did this six times. Cars were dropped from a Lockheed C-130 Hercules high above the Arizona desert, but close up shots that show the cars landing on a mountain road were filmed in Colorado. There were two airplanes, flying at a height of 12,000 feet, each dropping two cars  apiece. BRS parachutes enabled with GPS were secured to each of the cars before dropping off the C-130 plane. At about 5,000 feet, the parachutes deployed. Over 10 cameras were used for the sequence. In addition to cameras on the ground, there were cameras remotely operated inside the plane and another three mounted outside each car. Additional cameras were on a helicopter, where Razatos was stationed watching monitors. Three skydivers used in the shoot wore helmet cameras to help shoot the sequence from multiple angles. Sky divers would either jump out before cars or after them. While all the cars  landed on their drop zones, 70% landed perfectly and 30% did not. For the close-up scenes which show the actors inside their cars, a giant gimbal with a 360-degree range of movement were attached to each of the cars and was filmed against a green screen to reproduce their tumble through the sky. The last part of the scene, which shows the cars hitting the road was shot separately. To get that right, the team set up a pulley system that had cars six to ten feet above the ground. When they were dropped from the cranes, the  stuntmen who were sitting in the driver's seats raced their engines at about 35 to 40 miles per hour and slid to the ground at full speed. Those cranes were then later removed from the film with computers. Razatos claims, therefore, that the air drop sequence was "all real" and that it would be "hard to top". The scene featuring Brian jumping off a bus off a cliff was performed by a stuntman and was all done without any computer graphics. The shooting for this particular sequence along with the scene in which Dom and his team are pursuing  to rescue Ramsey almost did not happen due to the absence of tax break in Colorado. The studio originally wanted to shoot the sequence in Georgia which provides tax breaks for film productions, and then add woods in the background later in post-production to which Razatos denied saying, "the audience is going to know [it's CGI] and aren't going to feel good about it." Shooting finally took place in Colorado. A total of 340 cars were used in the film, and more than 230 cars were destroyed in the making of the film, including several black Mercedes -Benzes, a Ford Crown Victoria, and a Mitsubishi Montero. The film featured the on-screen destruction of a Lykan HyperSport by W Motors, valued at $3.4 million, though the actual car destroyed was a less expensive model made for the film rather than one of the seven actual production HyperSports. The mountain-highway chase scene on Colorado's Monarch Pass proved to be the most damaging sequence with over 40 vehicles being destroyed. Only 10 percent of the action sequences in the film were computer-generated, and even then, much of the CGI was employed simply to erase the  wires and other contraptions that were used to film real cars and drivers or to add a background. It took more than 3,500 man-days to complete the various stunts of the film. Redevelopment of Walker's character. In January 2014, "Time" reported that Walker's character, Brian O'Conner, would be retired instead of killed, and that new scenes would be developed in order to allow the franchise to continue without him. To recreate Walker's likeness, the filmmakers hired Peter Jackson's Weta Digital visual effects house (which had previously produced the imagery of Gollum in "The Lord of  the Rings" franchise and Caesar in the "Planet of the Apes" franchise). Initially, what Weta could do was severely constrained by the quality of the reference materials available for Walker's physical appearance. In April 2014, it was reported that Walker's brothers Caleb and Cody had been hired as stand-ins. Their strong resemblance to their late brother meant the filmmakers could use scans of their bodies instead of recreating Walker's entire body from scratch. The final film showed Walker's face superimposed over the bodies of his brothers or actor John Brotherton in 350 visual effects shots . 260 used a computer-generated face, while 90 repurposed actual footage of Walker's face borrowed from outtakes or older footage. Music. The musical score was composed by Brian Tyler, who scored the third, fourth, and fifth installments of the series. "There's an emotional component to "Fast & Furious 7" that is unique", said Tyler about his experience scoring. "I think people are really going to be amazed by it." A soundtrack album to the film was released by Atlantic Records on March 17, 2015. Songs featured in the film include: Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth's "See You Again , which plays over the film's ending, and itself a tribute to Paul Walker, received both popular and critical acclaim. It was shortlisted for the Song of the Year for the BBC Music Awards and was nominated for Best Original Song at the 73rd Golden Globe Awards. See You Again" was the best selling-song of 2015 worldwide, with combined sales and track-equivalent streams of 20.9 million units according to IFPI. Release. Theatrical. The film originally scheduled to be released on July 11, 2014, but the film was put on hold following Paul Walker's death in November 2013 . In October 2014, Universal revealed that the film was officially titled "Furious 7". Leading up to the event, seven-second behind-the-scenes videos were released, titled "7 Seconds of 7". The film was next scheduled for release on April 10, 2015, but it was announced that the film's release date had been brought forward a week to April 3. The official announcement in change of date was made in July 2014. "Furious 7" premiered at the SXSW Film Festival at 12:07 a.m. at Austin's Paramount Theatre on March 16, 2015. For its global premiere at the TCL  Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles on April 1, IMAX Corporation installed a new laser projection which was the first such installation in the U.S. and the second worldwide, following "" (2014), which opened at Scotiabank Theatre in Toronto in December 2014. Home media. "Furious 7" was released on July 6, 2015 in the UK and was released via DVD and Blu-ray on July 28 in other countries. The Blu-ray edition features an all new extended edition of 140 minutes long, deleted scenes, stunts, behind-the-scenes, and the music video for Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth's "See You  Again". The Blu-ray and DVD version include behind-the-scene footage of the "Race Wars" scene including rapper Iggy Azalea and making of the cars featured in the film. In the U.S. and Canada, it sold roughly 2.5 million units on Blu-ray and DVD in its first week of release, making it the highest-selling home entertainment live-action film of 2015. This record was later surpassed by "Jurassic World" (2015) the following month. Reception. Box office. "Furious 7" grossed $353 million in the United States and Canada and $1.163 billion in other countries, for a  worldwide total of $1.516 billion, against a production budget of $190–250 million. It was also the fastest film to reach the $1 billion mark at the time, doing so in 17 days. It also became the first film to pass $1 million in 4DX admissions worldwide. "Deadline Hollywood" calculated the film's net profit as $354million, accounting for production budgets, marketing, talent participations, and other costs; box office grosses and home media revenues placed it fifth on their list of 2015's "Most Valuable Blockbusters". Worldwide, "Furious 7" was released across 810 IMAX theaters, which  was the largest worldwide rollout in IMAX's history, Its worldwide opening of $397.6 million was the fifth-highest opening of all time. The film had an IMAX opening weekend total of $20.8 million. North America. Predictions for the opening weekend of "Furious 7" in the United States and Canada were continuously revised upwards, starting from $115 million to $150 million. It opened on Friday, April 3, 2015, across 4,004 theaters, including 365 IMAX theaters, which made it the widest opening for the "Fast and Furious" film and Universal's widest opening release ever (until first  surpassed by "Jurassic World" and "Minions") and earned $67.4 million, marking the tenth-biggest opening day. The film's Friday gross included a $15.8 million late-night run (which began at 7 p.m.), from 3,069 theaters, marking Universal's highest late-night run, of which $2.2 million came from IMAX showings, marking the third largest IMAX preview gross ever. Based on pure Friday gross (with the omission of revenues from Thursday shows), it earned $51.5 million, marking the fifth-biggest of all time. Through Sunday, April 5, it had an opening weekend total of $147.1  million. This opening broke the records for the highest weekend debuts in April and for the Easter Weekend, both of which were later overtaken by "" and "", respectively. It earned an IMAX opening weekend total of $13.3 million, marking the second-biggest of all time for a 2D movie. Premium large format comprised 8% ($11.5 million) of the total opening gross from 400 PLF screens, which is the biggest 2D PLF opening. In its second weekend, the film expanded to 4,022 theaters, thereby breaking its own record of being the widest Universal Pictures release ever, and earned an estimated  $59.6 million, declining by 60%, which is the third best second weekend holdover for a pre-summer film release. It became the highest-grossing film in the "Fast & Furious" franchise, doing so only in ten days (the previous record which was held by "Fast & Furious 6" took fifteen weeks to reach its entire lifetime gross of $238.67 million). It also set the record for the biggest second-weekend April gross. Outside North America. "Furious 7" opened on April 1, 2015 in 12 countries, earning $16.9 million (including previews from 22 countries). It opened in 33 more countries  on April 2, for a total of 45 countries, earning $43 million from 8,407 screens, marking Universal Pictures overseas' highest-grossing Thursday ever, and for a two-day total of $60 million. It added 20 more countries on April 3, earning $59.2 million from 9,935 screens in 63 countries, for a three-day total of $120.6 million. On April 5, it earned a 4-day opening weekend total of $250.4 million from 10,683 screens in 64 countries, which is the fourth-highest international opening ever, in all which it reached first place at the box  office. It earned an IMAX opening weekend total of $7.5 million from 175 IMAX screens, breaking the record for the biggest April IMAX gross, previously held by "" (2014) ($6.43 million). It set opening weekend records in 29 countries including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Egypt, Malaysia, Mexico, Middle East, Romania, Taiwan, Thailand, Venezuela and Vietnam. In its second weekend, it held the top spot and fell gradually by 20.4% to $198.7 million (including China's opening day gross) from 18,374 screens in 66 territories as a result of minor competition, and remaining at number one in all 63  territories where it was released the previous week. It added three new countries in its second weekend; China, Russia and Poland. The film earned $167.9 million in its third weekend, which topped the box office outside of North America for three consecutive weekends. The film was a massive box office hit in China. It opened there on April 12 and set an all-time midnight run record with $8.05 million and an opening day record with $68.8 million. Its opening day included a record-breaking $5 million from IMAX run (also breaking ""s (2014) former record  of $3.4 million). Through its opening week (April 12–19), it earned $245.9 million. For the weekend alone, it took in $88.7 million from 5,454 screens (Friday to Sunday) and $182.4 million (Monday to Sunday) at the Chinese box office. It grossed billion in five days—the fastest time in which that has been achieved—and soon became the highest-grossing foreign film ever in China. In 15 days, its gross in China surpassed those in Canada and the United States and became the first film in China to make more than 2 billion renminbi. Its success  has been credited to China Film Group Corporation, the state-owned film distributor, which had invested considerably in the film, reportedly taking a 10% stake. In Latin America, it became the second highest-grossing film ($200 million), the first time Universal has reached the milestone and the second film in history to earn more than $200 million after "The Avengers" (2012). In total earnings, the largest countries outside the U.S. and Canada are China ($391.2 million), the United Kingdom ($60 million), Mexico ($51.7 million), Brazil ($46.6 million) and Germany ($42.8 million). It grossed  a total of $39 million in IMAX ticket sales in China, the biggest ever in the market. Critical response. "Furious 7" received positive reviews, with critics praising the film's action set pieces, performances and its poignant tribute to Walker. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported an approval rating of 82% with an average score of 6.70/10, based on 277 reviews, the highest-rated film in the franchise to date. The website's critical consensus reads, "Serving up a fresh round of over-the-top thrills while adding unexpected dramatic heft, "Furious 7" keeps the franchise moving in  more ways than one." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 67 out of 100 based on 50 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale. The film received highly positive reviews upon its secret screening at the South by Southwest film festival on March 16, 2015. Ramin Setoodeh of "Variety" noted that fans began lining up outside four hours before the film was scheduled to start. The film closed with a tribute to Walker, which left many in the  theater "holding back tears". A. O. Scott of "The New York Times" gave the film two and a half stars out of five and said, ""Furious 7" extends its predecessors' inclusive, stereotype-resistant ethic. Compared to almost any other large-scale, big-studio enterprise, the "Furious" brand practices a slick, no-big-deal multiculturalism, and nods to both feminism and domestic traditionalism." John DeFore of "The Hollywood Reporter" criticized the film however, describing it as "stupidly diverting", saying the running time was "overinflated"; he compared watching the film to a morbid game, in addition to criticizing the screenplay. Sequel. A  sequel, titled "The Fate of the Furious", was directed by F. Gary Gray and written by Chris Morgan, and was released on April 14, 2017.