Entertainment
Golden Girls inspired fifth Fast and Furious film as F9 director reveals incredible connection
An unlikely connection has been unveiled between Fast and Furious and The Golden Girls… with F9 director Justin Lin revealing the sitcom actually inspired the fifth film in the franchise. Yes really.
Justin’s connection with The Fast and The Furious goes way back, with the filmmaker directing the third, fourth, fifth and six films in the franchise.
Following his work on The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Fast & Furious 4, Fast Five and Fast & Furious 6, Justin has returned to helm F9, in addition to a planned 10th and 11th film.
During a recent interview, the director explained how Golden Girls, a programme he’s cherished since his childhood, directly inspired Fast Five, which starred Vin Diesel, the late Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster and Tyrese Gibson.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Justin said: ‘The Golden Girls are part of the Fast lore because when I was a kid I loved Golden Girls.’
‘Saturday nights, it was Golden Girls, Empty Nest, and then there was [Nurses],’ he recollected.
Justin explained that ‘they had this thing called Hurricane Saturday night’, which saw each episode of the three TV shows ‘hit by a hurricane’.
‘That was the first time where I was like, “Oh, they all exist in the same universe”,’ he said.
‘That was the inspiration for Fast Five. We brought back characters, they all existed in the same universe. That’s the Golden Girls connection.’
Justin added that it would be a ‘dream’ to cast Betty White in the final two Fast and Furious films, with the 99-year-old actor having played Rose Nylund in the classic 1980s show.
The ninth Fast and Furious film is set to be released in the UK on June 24.
The film will see Dom Toretto (Vin) and Letty Ortiz’s (Michelle Rodriguez) life thrown into disarray as danger ‘lurks just over their peaceful horizon’.
‘This time, that threat will force Dom to confront the sins of his past if he’s going to save those he loves most,’ the synopsis reads.
His crew joins together to stop a world-shattering plot led by the most skilled assassin and high-performance driver they’ve ever encountered: a man who also happens to be Dom’s forsaken brother, Jakob (John Cena).’
Earlier this year, Golden Girls were delighted by the news that every episode of the beloved TV show will be making its way to Disney Plus this summer.
The sitcom originally aired on NBC from 1985 to 1992, starring Betty as Rose, Beatrice Arthur as Dorothy Zbornak, Rue McClanahan as Blanche Devereaux and Estelle Getty as Sophia Petrillo.
The Golden Girls is available to rent on Amazon Prime Video and will launch on Disney Plus this summer.
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