‘Fast and Furious 8’ Stars Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson Reported Feud; Actors Kept Apart In Tours.
Movie bosses at Universal are reportedly keeping Vin Diesel and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson away from each other for fear their 2016 feud will wreck promotion for the new Fast & Furious movie.
Executives will present footage from The Fate of the Furious at CinemaCon in Las Vegas on Wednesday, and Johnson will most noticeably be absent.
Diesel, Charlize Theron and the rest of the cast will be at the launch.
The two stars, who become rivals in the new film, famously fell out last year, shortly after filming wrapped, with Johnson taking aim at Diesel for his alleged bad behaviour and timekeeping on set.
In August, Universal bosses insisted that the actors had put the past behind them, but it appears there’s still some bad blood two weeks before the film hits cinemas.
“They’re keeping them separated as much as possible,” an insider tells The Hollywood Reporter.
And it’s not as if Johnson’s schedule is preventing him from CinemaCon – he was at the theatre owners convention on Tuesday promoting his other new movie, Baywatch, for Paramount, and on Monday night, he introduced Sony’s Jumanji remake there.
The feud between the action men dates back to the end of filming, when Johnson took to Facebook to cryptically attack his castmate for his alleged unprofessional conduct.
“My female co-stars are always amazing, and I love ‘em,” the former wrestler wrote. “My male co-stars however are a different story.”
He went on to add some are “chicken s—” and “candy a–es.” The Facebook attack reportedly led to a showdown between Diesel and Johnson on set.
Diesel, who is one of the new film’s producers, was singled out as the source of Johnson’s social media outburst.
The two superstars won’t meet at CinemaCon on Wednesday, but both are contracted to hit the red carpet at the Fate of the Furious premiere in New York on April 8.
DIESEL DOESN’T WANT TO LET WALKER DOWN
Diesel said he and the Fast and Furious crew do not want to let down the late Paul Walker with their new film.
The actor on Wednesday spoke to a packed auditorium at CinemaCon in Las Vegas about the eighth instalment in the franchise, The Fate of the Furious— the first full film in the series made in the aftermath of Walker’s death in 2013.
After Walker died, his two brothers helped complete action scenes in Furious 7, which earned more than US$1.5 billion globally when it was released in 2015.
Diesel said Walker had always envisioned eight movies in the series and he feels like Walker is looking down on them.
“It’s a hard one, it was a hard decision to make,” Diesel said. “The irony is that, when I thought about going into this eighth chapter, it was Paul Walker who promised eight. Played over and over in my brain, him saying, ‘eight is guaranteed.’”
The Fate of the Furious hits theatres on April 14.
