It looks like John Cena is about to eff up his catchphrase of ‘U can’t see me’ once again, by joining the cast of Fast & Furious 9.
While details are still thin on the ground, Cena will no doubt be doing really big suplexes and really fast ‘brrm, brrms’ in some shiny fast cars (which may or may not explode) in the latest instalment of one of the world’s most successful (shudders) movie franchises of the last decade.
With Jason Statham and Dwayne (if you smell what) The Rock (is cooking) Johnson busy doing their thing on the spin-off Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw, Vin Diesel has had a very large pair of shoes (boots if you will) to fill. Enter: very large boots filler, John Cena.
Vin Diesel teased the announcement in April, gruffing to the Gram:
Ah guys, as you guys know I’m always thinking fast, and thinking about the responsibility of making something iconic and deserving of your loyalty.
I know this sounds crazy but every blue moon, I feel like Pablo up there sends me someone, another soldier for the fight for truth, and today someone came by to run our gym that speaks to what Pablo would’ve brought me.
All love, always.
On Friday (June 8), Universal Pictures confirmed Cena was a lock, Deadline reports.
Cena retweeted the news on Twitter, saying:
For nearly 20 years, the Fast Franchise has entertained fans and created some of the biggest cinematic moments in history. It’s an incredible honor to join this franchise and this family.
The studio is keeping Cena’s character under wraps for now, but is reportedly and somewhat obviously going to be ‘a badass’.
Justin Lin returns to the director’s chair continuing his directorial work on Fast & Furious Tokyo Drift, Fast & Furious, Fast Five and Fast & Furious 6.
After previously threatening to walk away from the franchise unless there was better female representation, Michelle Rodriguez is back on board after producers granted her wish for another woman to be added to the writing team.
The ninth part of the global phenom is predicted to be both fast and furious.
Fast & Furious 9 is set to hit screens May 22, 2020.
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Tim Horner is a sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated with a BA Journalism from University College Falmouth before most his colleagues were born. A previous editor of adult mags, he now enjoys bringing the tone down in the viral news sector.