Hobbs And Shaw

''Hobbs & Shaw'' (or ''Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw'') is a 2019 buddy action comedy film directed by David Leitch from a script by Chris Morgan and Drew Pearce. It is a spin-off film and the ninth installment of the ''Fast & Furious'' franchise, taking place after the events of ''The Fate of the Furious'' (2017) and before the events of '' F9'' (2021). It stars Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham, alongside Idris Elba, Vanessa Kirby, Eiza González, Cliff Curtis, and Helen Mirren. In the film, Luke Hobbs and Deckard Shaw join Shaw's younger sister Hattie Shaw to take down Brixton Lore (Elba), a cybernetically enhanced terrorist, who is threatening the world with a deadly virus.

Franchise star and producer Vin Diesel said in 2015 that possible spin-offs were in early development, and ''Hobbs & Shaw'' was officially announced in October 2017. Leitch signed on to direct in April 2018, with Kirby and Elba joining the cast three months later. Principal photography ran from September 2018 to January 2019, with locations including London, Glasgow, and Kaua'i. The film was subject to controversy after longterm ''Fast & Furious'' producer Neal H. Moritz filed a lawsuit against Universal Pictures for breach of oral contract and committing promissory fraud related to his role on ''Hobbs & Shaw'', which was eventually settled in September 2020 and he received a producer credit on '' F9''.

An international co-production between the United States and Japan, ''Hobbs & Shaw'' premiered at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood on July 13, 2019, and was theatrically released by Universal Pictures in the United States on August 2, 2019. It received mixed reviews from critics, who praised its action sequences and the chemistry between Johnson and Statham, but found it underwhelming when compared to other ''Fast & Furious'' films. It was a box office success, grossing $760.7 million worldwide on a budget of $200 million.

Plot

In London, MI6 agent Hattie Shaw and her team attempt to retrieve a programmable supervirus nicknamed snowflakes from ''Eteon'', a techno-terrorist organization. The team secures Snowflake, but is attacked by Brixton Lore, an ex-MI6 agent and Eteon operative, who has cybernetic implants allowing him to perform superhuman feats. Brixton kills every agent except Hattie, who injects herself with the only dose of Snowflake before escaping. Brixton frames Hattie for killing her team and stealing Snowflake, forcing her to go on the run.

Luke Hobbs is an ex- DSS agent and Deckard Shaw, Hattie's older brother, is an ex-MI6 agent. They are informed of the missing virus and, after arguing due to their past as fierce rivals, reluctantly work together to track it down. After a brief meeting at a CIA black site at 122 Leadenhall Street, Deckard goes to Hattie's apartment for information, but he is attacked by Eteon operatives. Luke finds Hattie, who instigates a fight with him, but Luke manages to bring her to a CIA office. As Deckard arrives and informs Luke that Hattie is his sister, the office is attacked by Eteon forces.

Hattie is kidnapped by Brixton, whom Deckard recognizes as an old colleague-turned-enemy he thought that he killed. Luke and Deckard rescue Hattie and evade Brixton during an ensuing car chase. However, Brixton frames all three as criminals via Eteon's control of global news media. The three locate Snowflake's creator Prof. Andreiko and learn that he purposed it to efficiently deliver vaccines; to prevent Eteon from using it to eradicate humanity, Hattie must either be cremated, while the virus is still dormant or have it removed with a specialized extraction device located at Eteon's facility in Chernobyl. Despite Luke briefly being detained at the airport due to Deckard giving him the fake name Mike Oxmaul, the three manage to travel to Moscow.

After rendezvousing with Deckard's ex-girlfriend Margarita to rearm in Moscow, the three infiltrate the facility. They retrieve the device before escaping in a truck during the facility's destruction, but Andreiko is killed by Brixton and the device is damaged. Luke takes Deckard and Hattie to his childhood home in Samoa to visit his estranged brother Jonah, a talented mechanic, to repair the device and lay low before confronting Brixton's forces again. Luke has a tense reunion with his family, to whom he has not spoken since he gave up his criminal father to the authorities. Despite Jonah's objections, their mother and Deckard convince him to help repair the device and oppose Eteon's incoming forces.

The makeshift battalion prepares for Eteon's arrival, disabling the weapons used by Eteon's team by temporarily shutting down their authorization code and setting up a variety of traps around the island. Jonah successfully repairs the device and starts the virus extraction just as Brixton and his army arrive. In the ensuing battle, the Samoans engage and easily overpower Brixton's reinforcements, while suffering minimal casualties. Brixton recaptures Hattie with a helicopter, but the Samoans join Luke and Deckard in bringing the aircraft down with several custom trucks. Luke and Deckard alternate their attacks to defeat Brixton, who is later killed remotely by Eteon's unseen director. The director sends a message claiming to know Luke and intending to persuade him and the Shaw siblings, while Luke and Deckard promise to track down the director. The group later celebrates their victory.

In post-credits scenes, Luke brings his daughter to meet extended family in Samoa, while Deckard and Hattie are implied to break their mother out of prison. Luke receives a call from his partner Locke, who has broken into a laboratory and discovered a more threatening virus. Luke also sets the police in London on Deckard in retaliation for the Mike Oxmaul prank, telling the police that Deckard's name is Hugh Janus.

Cast

In addition, Lori Pelenise Tuisano portrays Sefina Hobbs, the mother of Luke Hobbs and matriarch of the Hobbs family. Rob Delaney appears as CIA agent Loeb while the film's director David Leitch makes a cameo appearance as an Eteon helicopter pilot. Ryan Reynolds and Kevin Hart make uncredited cameo appearances as CIA agent Victor Locke and Air Marshal Dinkley, respectively. The Eteon Director, a role Keanu Reeves was in negotiations for, does not physically appear in the film, but is also voiced by Reynolds in a dual role, under the pseudonym "Champ Nightingale".

Production

Development

In October 2017, Universal Pictures announced a spin-off film in development centered around characters Luke Hobbs and Deckard Shaw, and set a release date of July 26, 2019, with Chris Morgan returning to write the script. ''Variety'' reported that Shane Black was being considered to direct the film. In February 2018, ''Deadpool 2'' director David Leitch entered talks to direct the film. In April 2018, Leitch was confirmed as the director for the film and added David Scheunemann as a production designer.

Casting

In July 2018, Vanessa Kirby was cast in the film to play an MI6 agent and Shaw's sister, along with Idris Elba as the main villain in the film. In October 2018, Eddie Marsan joined the cast of the film, and in November 2018, Eiza González was added as well. In January 2019, Johnson revealed that his cousin and professional wrestler Roman Reigns would appear in the film as Hobbs's brother. Additionally, he announced that Cliff Curtis, Josh Mauga, and John Tui would portray other brothers of Hobbs. Helen Mirren was also confirmed to be reprising her role from ''The Fate of the Furious''.

Filming

Principal photography began on September 10, 2018, in London, England. Dwayne Johnson joined the production two weeks later, on September 24, 2018, after he had wrapped filming ''Jungle Cruise''. Most filming was done at Shepperton Studios and Leavesden Studios. In October, filming moved to Glasgow, Scotland, to recreate London. Filming also took place in late 2018 at Eggborough power station in North Yorkshire, and in Farnborough, Hampshire. The Hawaiian island of Kaua'i was used as a stand-in for Samoa for the film's third act. Cinematographer Jonathan Sela shot the film with Arri Alexa SXT and Alexa Mini digital cameras and Hawk Class-X anamorphic lenses. Production officially wrapped on January 27, 2019. Scroggins Aviation Mockup & Effects was hired to supply a UH-60 Black Hawk (s/n 79-23354) in the film. Scroggins made modification to the UH-60 and worked with the art department to supply it with a digital cockpit panel.

Post-production

The visual effects were provided by DNEG, Cantina Creative, The Third Floor, RISE FX and Framestore, supervised by Mike Brazelton and Kyle McCulloch, and produced by Dan Glass. DNEG is the main vendor for this project, with a total VFX shots of around 1,000. They worked on the big action sequences in London, Chernobyl and a part of the climatic Samoan chase. The London chase sequence consists of blue screen environments and car interiors, with CGI reflections on the McLaren exterior. There are few head replacements and full CGI character doubles. For the latter, they were created and animated from reference photography of the main actors. The same method was applied for the McLaren and the Brixton bikes. Idris Elba was enhanced to give him super-human abilities. Motion graphics were used to make a sort of heads up display of data and stats called the Brixton vision, to help him in the fights. For the Chernobyl action sequence, the environments were made from Lidar scanning, texture reference of a decommissioned coal power plant used for the production shootings. Then, they extended parts of the facility and modified weather conditions. Drones were fully created and animated. Explosions were created too. Finally, they handled the Samoa chopper destruction.

Framestore handled 264 VFX shots for the project, mostly the 3rd-act chase sequence. They photographed the Nā Pali Coast on the North Side of Kauai, Hawaii before and during the main shoot. Then, they used their photography to be photo scanned and transferred into a CGI version of the coastline. They had to fit the CGI environment to the shoot location. They also created CGI cliffs, CGI foliage and some scattered rocks on flatter areas or ledges. Finally for the creation of the environments, they used many reference plate shots for the blue screens. They also photographed, photo scanned, modeled and animated all the vehicles portrayed in that sequence, including the Peterbilt, the M37, the Ratrod and the Black Hawk. The latter was cyber scanned by ClearAngle. They adapted the CGI vehicles with the environment, including the lighting, tillable textures and painting scratches. Finally, they enhanced the explosions and car crashes with some debris, fire elements and craters.

Music

In May 2019, ''Film Music Reporter'' announced that Tyler Bates would compose the film's score. The first single of the soundtrack is "Getting Started" written by Kyle Williams aka producer Willyecho (created through the series ''Songland'' for Aloe Blacc), and performed by American singer-songwriter Aloe Blacc and rapper JID. Idris Elba himself has produced a track featuring Cypress Hill's B-Real titled "Even If I Die"; the Hybrid remix of the track appears both in the film and during the end credits. The film's soundtrack also features numerous artists including Logic, Yungblud, A$ton Wyld, Ohana Bam, and The Heavy.

Marketing

The first poster was released on January 31, 2019. The first trailer was released on February 1, 2019, and a TV spot was aired during Super Bowl LIII, on February 3, 2019. A second trailer was released on April 18, 2019. The final trailer was released on June 28, 2019.

Release

Theatrical

The film had its premiere at the Dolby Theatre in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles, California on July 13, 2019. The film was theatrically released in the United States on August 2, 2019, after being moved from its previous date of July 26, 2019. The film began international rollout on July 31, 2019, and was released in China on August 23, 2019. The release is in 2D, Dolby Cinema, and IMAX. A RealD 3D conversion for the film was originally planned to release but was later cancelled. However, the planned conversion was done by Stereo D.

Lawsuit

In October 2018, ''Fast & Furious'' producer Neal H. Moritz filed a lawsuit against Universal Pictures for breach of oral contract and committing promissory fraud, after the distributor removed him as lead producer on ''Hobbs & Shaw''. In May 2019, it was revealed that Universal had dropped Moritz from all future ''Fast & Furious'' installments. His lawsuit was settled in September 2020, and Moritz would later return to the series with '' F9''.

Home media

''Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw'' was released on Digital HD on October 15, 2019, and on DVD, Blu-ray, and Ultra HD Blu-ray on November 5, 2019, by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment.

Reception

Box office

''Hobbs & Shaw'' grossed $174 million in the United States and Canada, and $586 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $760.7 million. ''Deadline Hollywood'' calculated the net profit of the film to be $84million, when factoring together all expenses and revenues.

In the United States and Canada, the film was projected to gross $60–65 million from 4,253 theaters in its opening weekend, while some insiders predicted it could exceed $70 million. The film made $23.7 million on its first day, including $5.8 million from Thursday night previews, the highest amount for both Johnson and Statham outside the main ''Fast & Furious'' series. It went on to debut to $60 million over the weekend, finishing first at the box office. Similar to the main ''Fast & Furious'' films, ''Hobbs & Shaw'' had a diverse audience, with audience demographics being 40% Caucasian, 27% Hispanic, 20% African American and 13% Asian. The film dropped 58% in its second weekend to $25.3 million, remaining in first, before another Universal film '' Good Boys'' replaced it in the third week.

In other territories, the film was projected to open to around $125 million from 54 countries, for a worldwide debut of $195 million. The film made $24.9 million from its first two days of international release. In its Chinese opening weekend the film made $102 million, grossing below projections but nevertheless being the second highest-grossing weekend of 2019 behind '' Avengers: Endgame''.

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 67% based on 341 reviews and an average rating of . The website's critical consensus reads, "''Hobbs & Shaw'' doesn't rev as high as the franchise's best installments, but gets decent mileage out of its well-matched stars and over-the-top action sequences." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 60 out of 100, based on 54 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale, while those at PostTrak gave it an average four out of five stars.

Writing for ''Variety'', Peter Debruge wrote, "Fan favorites Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham milk the friction between their characters while teaming up to save the world in this gratuitously over-the-top spinoff." Eric Kohn of IndieWire gave the film a "B−" and stated, "Strip away the meandering exposition and ''Hobbs & Shaw'' is an old-school screwball comedy that just happens to feature two major action stars." Conversely, the ''Chicago Sun-Times''s Richard Roeper gave the film 1.5 out of 4 stars, writing, "In case of bad-movie emergency, break glass. Over the two-hour-plus running time of the painfully long, exceedingly tedious, consistently unimaginative and quite dopey ''Hobbs & Shaw,'' I counted some 13 instances in which humans and/or vehicles went crashing through panes of glass."

Katie Walsh of ''Pittsburgh Post-Gazette'' earned a 2.5 out of 4 rating and said, "While director David Leitch, a former stuntman who helmed ''John Wick'' and ''Atomic Blonde'', cooks up some truly breathtaking action sequences and stunts, some moments lose their crisp clarity."

Accolades

Sequel

In November 2019, producer Hiram Garcia confirmed that all creatives involved have intentions in developing a sequel, with conversations regarding the project ongoing. By March 2020, Johnson confirmed that a sequel was officially in development, while the creative team was not yet decided. Garcia confirmed the project was in active development a month later, citing the box office performance of ''Hobbs & Shaw'', and announced Morgan would return to write. Johnson expressed excitement for the sequel that same month, stating that it will introduce new characters.

In November 2021, Johnson revealed that he had developed an original idea for the sequel, which he described as "the antithesis of ''Fast & Furious''" and that he presented the concept to Universal Pictures chairwoman Donna Langley, as well as Garcia and Morgan. He elaborated the sequel would take immediate precedence over the rest of his film-slate, and further teased its development will progress after he completes the holiday-action film '' Red One'' (2024). Later that month, Garcia confirmed that work on the screenplay is ongoing, calling the film "very ambitious". In December 2022, Universal Pictures producer Kelly McCormick stated the film's production has been stalled.

In June 2023, Johnson announced plans for a direct sequel were postponed, and that a standalone sequel serving as a direct continuation to ''Fast X'' (2023) that would bridge into the eleventh main film was in development. The title was announced as ''Hobbs & Reyes'', with Johnson and Jason Momoa set to star. Morgan is set to return to write the film, with Garcia, Johnson, Dany Garcia, Vin Diesel, Samantha Vincent, Jeff Kirschenbaum, and Neal H. Moritz set to produce.

References

Bibliography

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External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Hobbs and Shaw
2019 films
2019 action adventure films
2019 action comedy films
2010s buddy comedy films
American action adventure films
American buddy action films
2010s English-language films
Films about cyborgs
Films about drones
Film spinoffs
Films about infectious diseases
Films about terrorism in Europe
Films about MI6
Films directed by David Leitch
Films produced by Chris Morgan
Films produced by Dwayne Johnson
Films produced by Jason Statham
Films scored by Tyler Bates
Films set in Chernobyl (city)
Films set in London
Films set in Los Angeles
Films set in Moscow
Films set in Samoa
Films set on airplanes
Films shot in England
Films shot in Glasgow
Films shot in Hawaii
Films shot in London
Films shot at Bovingdon Studios
Seven Bucks Productions films
Interquel films
Techno-thriller films
Films with screenplays by Chris Morgan
Films with screenplays by Drew Pearce
IMAX films
Universal Pictures films
Fast & Furious films
2010s American films
English-language action adventure films