There is no The Fast & the Furious as we currently know it without Justin Lin. The director altered the franchise's entire chronology with Tokyo Drift, faltered a bit with Fast & Furious, and then slammed the NOS button for Fast Five, officially pivoting the series away from its humble street-racing roots and into the globetrotting heist extravaganza it remains today. If you're looking for the specific moment where these movies shifted gears, look to the favela rooftop foot-chase in Fast Five, which not only still stands as one of the franchise's most technically impressive set-pieces, but also managed to pack in a number of vital character moments for Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel), Brian O'Connor (Paul Walker), Mia Toretto (Jordanna Brewster), and Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson). Before F9 hit theaters, we sat down with Lin and asked him to dive into any particular F&F scene he wanted. He immediately chose the favela chase.
Most surprisingly, he mostly wanted to discuss how it almost never happened. Here's what Lin told us:
"I remember sitting there and getting the news that we just couldn’t get the budget to work and we weren’t gonna be able to go to Brazil, which meant the favela chase was going to be cut. We had to figure out another way. I went to my AD and I asked him, 'In the existing schedule, how many days can we do?' And he said, 'A day and a half.” That was easily a six-day chase. I was like, 'Screw it, we’re going to do it in a day and a half."
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