Will there be a Hobbs & Shaw 2?
It’s been five years since the release of Fast & Furious spin-off Hobbs & Shaw and we’re still yet to see a sequel... what gives?
Released in 2019, Hobbs & Shaw focused on two of the Fast franchise’s most promising characters, Dwayne Johnson’s Luke Hobbs and Jason Statham’s Deckard Shaw, and paired them off on a thrilling new adventure to try to stop a terrorist who was threatening humanity with a deadly virus.
They were successful, you’ll be pleased to know — and as the ninth instalment of this sprawling, car-loving movie series, so was the movie itself. Fans seemed to love Hobbs & Shaw, which racked up a fairly solid 67% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Not long after its debut, a sequel was officially announced — but since late 2019, progress on the follow-up has been sputtering at best with the project stalling altogether before morphing into something completely different. So what’s the deal with Hobbs & Shaw 2 — are we getting it and if not, how come? Let's take a look.
When were Hobbs & Shaw last on-screen together?
Bounty Hunter and US agent Luke Hobbs was first introduced in Fast Five in 2011, coinciding with Johnson’s rise to mega-stardom and box-office leading man status.
Meanwhile, Statham’s military assassin Deckard Shaw first appeared in a post-credit sequence in Fast & Furious 6 in 2013. The pair joined forces for Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw in 2019 following a previous team-up during 2017’s The Fate of the Furious.
The pair were last seen together on-screen in small appearances as part of 2023's Fast X, with Johnson popping up during a mid-credit sequence. This confused viewers slightly, as the long-promised sequel to their stand-alone spin-off feature has yet to materialise.
While it seemed that both stars probably didn't share a set together — shooting their individual Fast X performances on different dates, for example — the characters’ return got people wondering when Hobbs & Shaw 2 could arrive. However, as it turns out, the project has changed into something slightly different to what was originally promised.
So what’s happening with Hobbs & Shaw 2?
Considering the box office success of their original spin-off, another Hobbs & Shaw movie was given the go-ahead in November 2019. By late 2021, Johnson had revealed he’d developed a new story idea that was set to be the “antithesis of Fast & Furious.”
With that came the news that a script was currently being written. However, by summer 2023, progress on the project appeared to have halted with plans changing to include Jason Momoa’s Fast X character Dante Reyes instead.
According to reports, the movie will bridge the gap between Fast X and the impending Fast X Part 2, AKA Fast 11. With production on that sequel yet to begin, it remains unclear as to how Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Reyes will fit into the overall future of the Fast franchise.
However, either way, it looks like production on Hobbs & Shaw 2 is dead for now, and Johnson and Statham won’t be careening our way anytime soon.
Fast X is available to stream now.
