Scenes from the film Fast and Furious 7. Photo provided to China Daily
"I Love China!"
U.S. action star Vin Diesel roared his approval of the Middle Kingdom in front of hundreds of fans at a plaza in Beijing's Sanlitun last week. Diesel was in the capital to promote his upcoming film, Fast and Furious 7, which will be released in China on April 12.
Diesel had a busy schedule meeting dozens of reporters, some of whom even traveled from Singapore and Dubai, but the actor still managed to squeeze in time to tour the Forbidden City.
As a leading actor and producer of the Fast and Furious franchise, Diesel seemed to be in a good mood－and he has plenty of reasons to be.
Since the first film was released in 2001, the franchise has taken in $2.3 billion at the box office worldwide. The seventh installment, with a budget of $250 million, attracted investment from China Film Group Corp, but the specific amount of that investment has not been made public.
Fast and Furious 7 will be the first film in China to be released in cinemas in all three major formats: 3-D, Imax and China Giant Screen. The unprecedented release has led many Chinese movie fans to speculate that the film will have Chinese elements.
"If there is another Fast and Furious, it will be filmed in China," Diesel told the fans.
The movie star later expanded on these comments in an interview with China Daily.
"The idea of an actor from China being in part of the Fast saga feels inevitable," he says.
"As the producer, I am proud the saga is multicultural. The first thing I did after I became producer of the franchise (from Fast and Furious 4) was to break down racial lines, take all of them and create a family.
"When I was a kid, I used to play Dungeons and Dragons. In many ways, that affects the way that I produce movies. It's just a matter of time for the audience going down the hall toward China," Diesel explains, somewhat mysteriously.
He says there are subtle hints in previous episodes that the story is leading to China.
"Audiences appreciate it when movies speak to each other and answer unanswered questions, even from a movie that is 10 years old."
