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8.11.2011

justin lin confirms he's directing fast six

All right. It's confirmed. Justin Lin is directing the inevitable sixth installment of the Fast series. We knew it was coming. A movie makes $600 million+ in worldwide box office cash, you're definitely going to see more of this franchise. And there was that tasty little scene during the closing credits of Fast Five that pretty much guaranteed there was more to this story.

During interviews promoting the upcoming Blu-ray release of Fast Five, Justin confirmed the tentatively titled Fast Six as his next project. He also revealed that he's met and talked with Arnold Schwarzenegger about the Terminator sequel he is indeed also directing. He also talked about why he turned down Die Hard 5: Justin Lin Says He's Met With James Cameron & Arnold Schwarzenegger To Talk 'Terminator 5.'
Following the success of "Fast Five" earlier this summer, Lin began fielding offers to direct a number of other franchise sequels including "Die Hard 5." Although his immediate follow up will be "Fast and Furious 6," he said that he's enjoyed exploring a variety of options going forward. "It's been great after 'Fast Five,' " he confessed. "I feel very honored to be included, and I've talked to a lot of different studios, and they're some amazing franchises that I love." At the same time, Lin indicated that he wanted to capitalize on his growing clout in Hollywood, and without being able to exert a degree of creative control over some of those projects, he had to decline offers to direct a few of them.

"I've had to kind of walk away from a lot of stuff," he explained. "Because I'm in a position that I can at least assess what I want to do with it. I feel like with a lot of these other franchises, it's hard to be a director for hire, because you want to go in, and if you're going to like join something that exists, I think it's going to have to be built from the ground up, in a way. I think having a filmmaker approach to a franchise is the ultimate goal." Although he insisted he was grateful for the opportunity to be considered to direct "Die Hard 5," he reveals why he wound up not taking it on. "For many of the projects, I feel very privileged, but I just know it wasn't the right situation. And the first 'Die Hard' changed me as a kid when I watched it. But 'Die Hard 5' is just not something that I'm going to do, or I'm interested in."
This time, it sounds like they're going into Fast Six with a fairly clear, sketched-out idea of where they're taking the story. Justin says they've even got a 12-minute sequence already in the can: 'Fast Six' Director Justin Lin: I Already Have A 12-Minute Sequence Done.

Justin Lin is going to be pretty busy for a while. So in case you're keeping score... Fast Six: Yes. Terminator: Yes. Die Hard 5: No. Highlander remake: No. Fast Five is out on Blu-ray/DVD on October 4. And Fast Six is already scheduled to hit theaters on May 24, 2013.