Is Fast X Going to Space? The Movie's Budget Sure Looks Like It's Something Equally Expensive
A staggering $340 million! What a figure! That is the budget for Fast X, the 10th film in Universal's Fast and Furious action franchise, according to some reports citing those in the know of the film's production.
If true, the movie could make it into the top five most expensive movies of all time, taking the number 4 spot behind Avengers: Endgame ($356 million), Avengers: Age of Ultron ($365 million) and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides ($379 million).
The report about the ballooning budget of Fast X has been published by The Wrap and says that the amount is a 70% increase from the original $200 million budget for the movie.
But what could have driven the budget so high? The report suggests that it could be literally anything – from the rising costs of the overall production affected by inflation, to the safety measures resulting from the COVID pandemic, and of course the skyrocketing salaries of Vin Diesel and the rest of the main cast.
Some fans suggested that the price tag was something you would expect from a movie shot in space. And that is indeed an interesting observation. In recent years, it was the Russians who went beyond the final frontier and made a movie on the International Space Station. Vyzov (A Call in English), which is currently in post-production and will be released in the spring of 2023, had a more modest budget – around $7 million, but some reports say that 10 days of shooting in orbit on the ISS could be much more expensive.
Then there is Tom Cruise, who is really capable of making a space blockbuster. He just released Top Gun: Maverick, which is all about dogfights, jet fighters, and pilots, so going into space on Elon Musk's SpaceX Dragon is a logical next step for him. These plans were announced back in 2020 and just last week they were confirmed by Universal Filmed Entertainment Group chairman Donna Langley in an interview with Katie Razzall.
So it looks like Tom Cruise will be getting on a "rocket to the space station" to film and become "the first civilian to do a spacewalk outside the space station".
So what do you think, Fast X team? The guess may be that the allegedly bloated budget is meant for Fast X and its sequel, but we do not know this for sure. The 10th installment of the Fast and Furious sequence will be released in May 2023 and this is when we will most likely learn how much of a money splurging it was.