Michelle Rodriguez may be returning to the popular The Fast and the Furious franchise, but she has a condition first—the series needs to hire a female writer for its 9th installment.
According to Collider, the actress spoke about this issue at the Bloomberg Future of Equality Summit in London. “I felt like there was not enough of a female voice in the franchise,” Rodriguez said. “You should evolve with the times, not just pander to certain demographics that are stuck.”
This isn’t the first time that Rodriguez has talked about wanting more the female characters in the franchise. Back in 2017, she was considering another exit from the series when she published the following on her Instagram, soon after the 8th film was digitally released.
“F8 is out digitally today, I hope they decide to show some love to the women of the franchise on the next one. Or I just might have to say goodbye to a loved franchise. It’s been a good ride & Im grateful for the opportunity the fans & studio have provided over the years… One Love.”
Letty is a great character in the franchise, but she often has not been able to do much as most of the focus tends to be on Dom (Vin Diesel) and, now that Paul Walker has passed away, Dwayne Johnson’s character, Luke Hobbs, who is about to be in a spin-off movie with Jason Statham and Idris Elba titled Hobbs & Shaw (which I will admit, looks amazing).
If they can find a way to give Hobbs a role outside of the main characters, there’s no reason Letty can’t grab Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel) and go on their own hacking adventure being bad-ass and cool ladies. With eight going on nine movies that have plenty of really solid female characters, there is no reason for them to typically take a backseat to the men of the series.
Chris Morgan, who has written the bulk of the franchise’ movies, only co-wrote one other movie before getting the change to tackle this franchise. I think being asked to bring in a woman to write/co-write is a small ask one the franchise has been long overdue for. I’d recommend Karyn Kusama, the writer behind Girlfight, Michelle Rodriguez’s breakout role. Kusama would be an excellent choice.
Fast & Furious 9 doesn’t have a release date, but production is expected to begin this year.
(via Collider, image: Universal Pictures)
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