Entertainment
The Rock and Tyrese Gibson Beef Over ‘Fast & Furious’ Spinoff
Fast And Furious co-stars Tyrese Gibson and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson have been trading jabs online for a while now. When Johnson announced the Hobbs spin-off movie on Instagram he was immediately met with a ton of shade from Gibson, who took it very personally.
The Fast and the Furious has become one of the most profitable franchises in Hollywood. The cast has mostly remained the same since the first film, besides a few additions coming in over the course of eight films — and of course the tragic loss of original cast member Paul Walker who died during the production of Fast 7.
One of the those early additions was Tyrese Gibson, who joined the Franchise in 2003’s 2 Fast 2 Furious. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s character started out as an antagonist to Dominic Toretto’s crew as he was tasked with bringing them down in Fast 5.
Without Paul Walker, tension started during the filming of Fast 8 and has boiled over now that it’s been announced that Johnson will star in his own Fast and the Furious spin-off. The filming of which delayed production of Fast and the Furious 9 all the way to 2020.
To be fair, there was some drama with Michelle Rodriguez also stating that the franchise should treat its female characters better and Diesel posting this:
But Gibson, either ignoring Diesel’s pleas for peace or acting on his behalf (probably the latter), wasn’t pleased with the Hobbs spin-off in principle or the fact that it’s production was going to delay the production of Fast 9 to 2020. He stated on Instagram:
He added, days later:
“I want you to shoot it just not right now cause the #Fast9 release date has already been announced and we can’t let our loyal fans #FastFamily or our loyal fast and furious FANS down on any level from pushing the date.”
Now, those messages have been since been deleted, but it didn’t help the drama, in fact it really just added to it and made it a Tyrese vs. Johnson situation. Apparently, Johnson attempted to reach out to Gibson via email, which apparently Gibson “doesn’t do”.
During the filming of Fast 8, which was aptly titled The Fate of the Furious, Johnson posted on his social media:
“There’s no other franchise that gets my blood boiling more than this one. An incredible hard working crew. Universal Studios Entertainment has been great partners as well. My female co-stars are always amazing and I love ’em. My male co-stars however are a different story. Some conduct themselves as stand up men and true professionals, while others don’t. “The ones that don’t are too chicken shit to do anything about it anyway. Candy asses. When you watch this movie next April and it seems like I’m not acting in some of these scenes and my blood is legit boiling – you’re right. Bottom line is it’ll play great for the movie and fits this Hobbs character that’s embedded in my DNA extremely well. The producer in me is happy about this part. Final week on FAST 8 and I will finish strong.”
Shots fired. Many people assumed he was talking about Vin Diesel himself and considering the fact that Diesel is a producer of the films and thus the “big brother,” lines were drawn in the sand and most of the cast stood beside Diesel.
Now, it is thought that Johnson was upset by Diesel’s lack of work ethic and holier-than-thou approach to making movies. Gossip sites like TMZ ate the rivalry up and dug deeper into where Johnson was coming from, and claimed that he was upset that Diesel essentially just filmed whenever he felt like it, showing up super late to filming.
A “secret meeting” was held to smooth things over, but that clearly didn’t work.
Tyrese posted a comment on Instagram about the drama, which he later deleted but many people saved, that talked about the drama stating that he wasn’t aware of any problems on set and reiterating that the Fast cast is a “family”. He ended his initial post with:
“I think Dwayne aka DJ happens to be one of the most humble, down to earth and professional people I’ve ever worked with and more importantly he’s my brother we have NEVER had a problem and will never have a problem…WE are good over here….As a cast we’re ALL married dammit!!!”
So, problem solved… Right? Wrong. Scott Eastwood, son of legendary Hollywood Actor/Director Clint Eastwood actually hinted at these problems well before Johnson had. In an interview with Esquire, he stated:
“I remember something [Clint Eastwood] told me early on. I don’t remember how old I was when you told me this, Dad. But you said, ‘As an actor, I never went back to my trailer. I always hung out on set and learned’.”That stuck with me. I’m on this Fast and the Furious movie right now, and everyone goes back to their trailer. I stick around and say, ‘Why are you setting up the shot like this?’ I want to learn.”
Johnson did attempt to further diffuse the tension by posting an image of him on set celebrating with the crew and saying:
“My FINAL WEEK of shooting #FastAndFurious,” he said. “There’s no greatness ever achieved alone.. it’s always a team effort. You guys reading this know how much I believe in the idea of TEAM EFFORT. That means respecting every person, their time and their value when they step on to my set or partner with our production company. And like with any team – that’s a family – there’s gonna be conflict. Family is gonna have differences of opinion and fundamental core beliefs.”
He added:
“To me, conflict can be a good thing, when it’s followed by great resolution. I was raised on healthy conflict and welcome it. And like any family, we get better from it. At the end of the day me and #F8 co-stars all agree on the most important thing: Delivering an incredible movie to the world.”
Now, that should’ve really been the end of it and had it been many people (or at least more people) would’ve said that the beef was just a marketing stunt by Johnson and company to hype up the upcoming Fate of the Furious, as the film was the first without Paul Walker and didn’t have the interest of the previous film, which was Walker’s last (his brothers actually had to fill in for him as he died during production). That theory fell a part though, as the feud continued through social media when both Tyrese and Ludacris “sided” with Diesel, passive aggressively, by posting pictures of them with Diesel (and without Johnson) on the set of the films.
Johnson responded by posting an image of himself, in front of a private plane, thanking everyone as Fast 8 wrapped… Except Diesel.
He wrote:
“Finished strong and on to the next. That’s an officially wrap on #FastAndFurious8. Thank you to our director @fgarygray for the vision and execution. Thank you UNIVERSAL for being tremendous partners as always, thank you to all my fellow co-stars for the daily effort and grind. Scott Eastwood you handsome sumbitch! Natalie Emmanuel I have a cold Budweiser ready for you and Tyrese Gibson you still have the biggest smile and forehead I’ve ever seen.
Diesel then tried to end the feud while also passive aggressively putting Johnson in his place by taking credit for hiring Johnson. He said (in a Facebook live video):
“The reason we brought Dwayne Johnson into Fast 5 was because of you (the fans), There was a girl named Jan Kelly who said, ‘I would love to see you work together on screen.’ So the role that was originally written for Tommy Lee Jones, we gave it to Dwayne and he shined in it.”
When the film was finally released, fans noticed that the two were barely seen on screen together, which only added fuel to the fire that the two weren’t getting along. During the scene where Dom crashes into Johnson’s Hobbs’ character, they aren’t actually on screen at the same time.
The end of the movie showed the “family” together but you really only saw Johnson’s back. Perhaps the studio was aware of the beef and made it so the two wouldn’t have to interact with one another. The rivalry then got worse and transformed into a Johnson vs. Gibson thing.
Tyrese recently posted this in response to Johnson’s latest diss:
Gibson posted another Instagram post that announced the release date of Furious 9 and elaborated during an interview with TMZ, stating:
“Everybody coming at me like I’m hating on Dwayne for his spin-off. I’m not. Truth is I just wish he was releasing it at a different time… Pushing our release date back? It’s only happened one time in the history of the Fast and the Furious, when we lost our brother Paul Walker. So what’s the reason we’re pushing the release date back now? I just got a problem with Dwayne, it appears he’s being selfish, it appears that he’s being so focused on furthering his own self interest that he’s making decisions from the seat that he’s sitting in. The Fast and the Furious 9 isn’t coming out till 2020… that’s f**ked up.”
Now, the rest of the cast has sided with Johnson, stating that The Rock has been nothing but amazing and professional. Stay tuned for more on this developing story.