Return of Dwayne Johnson to the Fast & Furious Universe

Dwayne Johnson did not want to come back to the Fast Furious franchise. This guy made it abundantly clear in any press interviews during the last few years that his time starring in these movies was over. The entire existence of the spinoff film Hobbs Shaw was basically a way to keep Johnson around in this fictional universe without giving him a need to work with Vin Diesel, the actor Johnson reportedly has beef with.

This meant that, as the Fast Furious franchise drew to its conclusion, it looked like key character Luke Hobbs wouldn’t be around for all the high-speed mayhem, even as the other titular lead of Hobbs Shaw Jason Statham’s Deckard Shaw was prominently featured in the marketing for Fast X.

However, those who stuck around until the middle of the credits on that tenth Fast Furious installment know that Johnson has finally come back into the fold of this main franchise. His brief cameo in this scene seems to indicate that he’ll have a much bigger role to play in the ultimate final to the Fast Furious saga and that Johnson’s attitude towards these movies has changed dramatically.

With just a few seconds of screen time, Johnson has totally overhauled his relationship with the Fast Furious franchise once more.

The Fast X scene in question featuring the return of Johnson arrives in the middle of the feature’s credits, with Hobbs fully decked out head-to-toe in a camouflage outfit that conceals his identity from the viewer. He enters a room filled with images and videos evoking a “vision board” belonging to Fast X antagonist Dante Jason Momoa that Dominic Toretto Diesel encountered earlier in the film.

Dante’s voice then breaks in on a cell phone left behind in the room. On this call, Dante reveals to Hobbs that, while Toretto instigated the death of his father, Hobbs was the one who actually shot him. This means Dante has extra incentive for violent revenge against this one-time foe of Toretto and his family.

As Dante finishes his vengeful speech, Hobbs removes his mask, revealing his identity to the viewer, and promises that Dante won’t need to look far for him because “I’m not a hard man to find.” He then crushes the cell phone in his hand, a vivid reminder to viewers everywhere that Johnson is back in this franchise once again and brought his powerful muscles with him.

This scene is interesting primarily because Hobbs is totally divorced from every other character in the film. He enters the scene with a squad of soldiers, though it’s unclear who they are or who they’re all working for. Partially, this had to be done to make it easier to film this scene in the first place, since it meant that shooting could revolve around just Johnson’s schedule.

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