31 Things You Probably Didn't Know About The "Fast And The Furious" Franchise

Bow Wow had to learn Japanese.

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1. Vin Diesel only agreed to make a cameo in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift if the studio would give his production company the rights to the character Riddick, a film he later made in 2013.

2. The studio agreed and Diesel appeared in The Fast and the Furious Tokyo Drift.

3. At one point, it was rumored that Eminem was considered for the role of Brian O'Conner.

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4. A few days before Paul Walker's passing, Diesel had a conversation with him about what would happen if Diesel passed away. He recalls telling Walker, "If I do die, let them know what kind of brother I’ve been to you." Walker died just a few days later.

5. Diesel went on to say that his first day back on set after Walker's death was "the toughest film I ever had to shoot."

6. He also described going through three boxes of tissues and having to step away from set because his "nose was running and eyes were tearing. I had to walk off set and try to get all the fluids out. I couldn’t contain my emotions."

7. Diesel went to see Walker's family after his passing and he recalls Walker's mother telling him she was sorry. She explained that even though she was his mother, Diesel was "his other half.”

8. When Diesel welcomed a baby girl in 2015 with Paloma Jiménez, he named her Pauline after Paul Walker.

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9. In the original script for the first movie, Michelle Rodriguez’s character, Letty, was supposed to sleep with Walker’s character, Brian O’Conner. She disagreed with that storyline, and Diesel backed her up.

10. Prior to landing the role of Mia, Jordana Brewster had to get a driver's license as she did not have one. She later recalled that she had to learn how to drive in New York City, and "it was not fun."

11. Prior to filming the franchise, Diesel said he used to get speeding tickets in New York often. But after the movies were released he realized he needed to slow down, "I started playing the Dom Toretto role and I feel like if I'm caught one mile over the speed limit, there's going to be a national holiday."

12. Michelle Rodriguez recalls not being impressed with Paul Walker the first time she met him and referred to him as a "Kenny Barbie Doll." She later said how wrong she was.

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13. When Jordana Brewster, aka Mia, was asked where she thought Mia and Brian were today she said, "She's with Brian, so I can't think of a better place for her to be. I imagine they're on some island, on some idyllic island, just living the life."

14. Bow Wow learned some Japanese for a scene in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, but it was cut from the film.

15. The idea for the original film The Fast and the Furious was actually inspired by a 1998 article in Vibe. The article told the story of NYC street racer Rafael Estevez.

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16. Ja Rule could've continued playing Edwin in the sequel to The Fast and the Furious, but he turned down a $500,000 offer, and was replaced by Ludacris, who currently plays Tej Parker in the series.

17. There were two scripts for 2 Fast 2 Furious. One featured Vin Diesel's character, Dominic Torretto, while the other was written without him, instead introducing new characters like Roman Pearce, played by Tyrese.

18. Michelle Rodriguez discovered that her character Letty was still alive in Fast Five the same way viewers did. She said, "They wanted to surprise me, I didn't find out until I actually went to the theater and saw it myself."

19. Director Justin Lin held a casting call for cars for Fast 8. The call was for drivers and their vehicles to serve as background extras.

20. The folks at Vulture did the math on the famous 13 minute runway scene in Fast and Furious 6 and it's estimated that the runway would have to have been 28 miles long for that scene to work. The longest paved runway in the world is 3.4 miles long.

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21. Fast & Furious 6 was almost called Furious 6 and was initially imagined as the final movie in the series.

22. Early on, Fast & Furious 6 was going to be split into two films, with the first being called "The Fast," and the second titled, "The Furious."

23. Denzel Washington was offered a role in Furious 7, but he turned it down.

24. The Fate of the Furious set a record for the biggest worldwide debut ever, surpassing Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($569.4 million) at $701.5 million.

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25. The Luke Hobbs character was originally written for Tommy Lee Jones, but obviously that didn’t happen as he’s played by Dwayne Johnson.

26. Diesel is way more involved in the films than you might think — he refers to himself as the "saga visionary." He helps provide story structure, input on casting, and even helps select songs for the soundtracks.

27. Unlike her character Letty, Michelle Rodriguez drives a Prius in real life.

28. Ludacris had to convince the director to give him a fight scene in Furious 7. So he went as far as showing him a reel of himself working on something involving martial arts to prove that he was capable.

29. Over 300 cars were used in the making of Fate of the Furious.

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30. Originally The Fast and the Furious was going to be called Redline, which wound up being the name of a 2007 car movie staring Eddie Griffin.

31. And it has now been almost 16 years since the first film premiered.