After months of speculation, NBCUniversal has confirmed that a live-action series based on Universal’s Fast & Furious action movie franchise is in development. And not just one but FOUR series, according to franchise star and producer Vin Diesel. He made the announcement on stage at the NBCUniversal upfront presentation Monday morning.
“Peacock is launching four shows in the Fast and the Furious universe,” Diesel said.
According to sources, one of them is set up at Peacock, with more in various stages of development at Universal Television.
Diesel is executive producing the series adaptation. Its pilot will be written by Mike Daniels, who just got an NBC series order for his take on another high-profile title from the NBCUniversal library, The Rockford Files, and Wolfe Coleman. The two previously worked together on the NBC series Shades of Blue.
No details are being provided on the series, which comes from Universal Television, a division of Universal Studio Group. Diesel and Sam Vincent executive produce via One Race alongside Fast & Furious franchise producer Neal Moritz and Pavun Shetty of Original Film, as well as two other franchise producers, Chris Morgan, who also wrote several of the movies, and Jeff Kirschenbaum.
On stage, Diesel spoke about being protective of the F&F brand, which made him originally turn down doing a sequel to the original movie.
“As you all know, we are very precious about these movies but over the last decade, we’ve realized that the fans have wanted more, they have wanted us to expand the legacy characters, their stories,” he said.
Diesel said he came around on the idea of a TV series when Universal Studios chief Donna Langley also took oversight of NBCUnievsral’s TV operation.
“That’s when I knew that the integrity of the characters, the international appeal, what makes us all feel like family will be protected in the TV space,” he said.
Diesel, Moritz and Morgan also executive produce an animated Fast & Furious series set at Netflix from DreamWorks Animation.
The Fast & Furious movie series marks its 25th anniversary this year with a special screening of the original movie at the Cannes Film Festival. Over the course of eleven films to date, the franchise has earned more than $7 billion at the worldwide box office. The final F&F chapter, Fast Forever, will be released March 17, 2028.
