TheFast and Furiousfranchise is one of the most lucrative in Hollywood, spinning into a globetrotting action series having begun as a humble crime movie about street racing and stealing DVD players. A little known fact is thatDavid Ayer, the director of films likeFury, End of WatchandSuicide Squadwas a co-writer on the story, but the filmmaker has been speaking out now against what he described as a narrative designed to write him out of the history of the series.
Speaking toJon Bernthalonhis “Real Ones” podcast, Ayer complained that the film was the biggest in Hollywood and yet he had nothing to show for it.Gary Scott Thompson and Erik Bergquisthad penned earlier versions of “The Fast and the Furious,” which were inspired by a 1998 Vibe magazine article titled “Racer X.” However, Ayer asserts that he entered the project and underwent a substantial transformation by reimagining the backdrop and anchoring the narrative within the genuine street racing culture of Los Angeles. He revealed that he had completely reworked the script from one based in New York,to the Los Angeles settingthe finished product ended up in, adding that a lot of the signature touches were down to his work.
“When I got that script, that shit was set in New York, it was all Italian kids, right?” Ayers said. “I’m like, ‘Bro, I’m not gonna take it unless I can set it in L.A. and make it look like the people I know in L.A., right?’ So then I started, like, writing in people of color, and writing in the street stuff, and writing in the culture, and no one knew shit about street racing at the time.
“I went to a shop in the Valley and met with like the first guys that were doing the hacking of the fuel curves for the injectors and stuff like that, and they had just figured it out and they were showing it, and I’m like, ‘Oh fuck yeah, I’m gonna put that in the movie.'”The film’s poorly received sequel2 Fast 2 Furiousdid not involve Ayer, and was written byMichael Brandt and Derek Haas, with Thompson receiving a “story by” credit.
Nothing to Show For It
Ayer went on to say that “because of the way the business works”, he wasn’t able to take credit for the film’s success due to his own desire to distance himself from the mingling and glad handing that pollutes Hollywood and allows for a culture of “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours”.
“Biggest franchise in Hollywood, and I don’t have any of it. I got nothing to show for it, nothing, because of the way the business works.
The narrative is I didn’t do shit, right? It’s like people hijack narratives, control narratives, create narratives to empower themselves, right?
And because I was always an outsider and because, like, I don’t go to the fucking parties. I don’t go to the meals, I don’t do any of that stuff. The people that did were able to control and manage narratives because they’re socialized in that part of the problem. I was never socialized in that part of the problem so I was always like the dark, creative dude, beware.”
Variety noted that Universal Pictures didn’t respond to request for comment when asked about Ayer’s remarks.
