Actor Kurt Russell may very well be joining the “Fast & Furious” team next summer, according to Variety.com.
The website reports the role is most likely vital to the movie because it’s the same role that superstar actor Denzel Washington turned down.
Russell is the latest of actors to join the cast of Vin Diesel (Dominic Toretto), Paul Walker (Brian O’Conner), Dwyane “The Rock” Johnson (Luke Hobbs) and many more.
The series also recently added action-movie specialist Tony Jaa, a Taiwanese actor making his English-language movie debut.
Martial martial arts fighter Ronda Rousey will be reportedly joining the movie as well.
Russell is known for playng roles such as McCabe in “Vanilla Sky,” Dexter Riley in “The Strongest Man in the World,” and Snake Plissken in “Escape from New York,” according to his International Movie Database profile.
The predecessor to “Fast and Furious 7”, this summer’s blockbuster hit “Fast and Furious 6,” brought in more than $750 million worldwide.
Hopefully for Universal, that success can be recreated with director James Wan taking over the Franchise. Wan is known for horror films such as “Insidious,” “Insidious: Chapter 2,” and “The Conjuring.”
Despite Wan’s expertise lying mostly in horror, he isn’t afraid (no pun intended) to take on a major action movie like “Fast & Furious 7.”
“Believe it or not, even though it’s a massive, massive movie compared to what I’m used to in the past, I’m not daunted by how big the movie is,” he said in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “Because to me, it’s just filmmaking -- it’s just longer and you have much bigger set pieces to design. If anything, it’s better for me because I have a lot of people at my disposal that I can use. I have real people -- top, high-end people -- to help me out with that. In a lot of ways, it’s actually a lot easier.”
Wan does have some experience in the action genre. He directed the film “Death Sentence” which was released in 2007.
“Fast & Furious 7” is scheduled to hit theaters July 11, 2014.