The Late, Great Roger Corman Has A Direct Connection To The Fast And The Furious Franchise

Roger Corman was a legend of filmmaking, and his contributions to the medium are unparalleled. He was known for low budgets and short shoots that made him an easy-to-work-with director, and for making B-movies that hit big with audiences. Most importantly, Corman mentored many of our greatest filmmakers, spreading his influence far and wide as those mentees broke big and started influencing others themselves. Take Martin Scorsese, one of the best living directors, who continues to be greatly influenced by Corman's work. But Corman's influence is also felt in more lowbrow cinema, like the work of Joe Dante and James Cameron.

Indeed, Corman's influence is still very much felt today, like in the way "The Fast and Furious" got its name. Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, producer Neal Moritz explained that the 2001 franchise starter was initially going to be titled "Race Wars," or maybe "Racer X," or "Street Wars." Then, everything changed after a screening of a documentary on American International Pictures, where Corman made many of his films. 

"I was watching that documentary, and I said, 'We need a title like AIP would have done in the past,'" Moritz said. "They talked about a Roger Corman movie called 'The Fast and the Furious,' and I was like, 'That should be the name of the movie!'"

When Moritz called the head of Universal to suggest the title, he said it had stuck with him. "So then we went to Roger Corman, and we were able to trade the title for some stock footage," Moritz continued. "Roger Corman, he wants to make a deal. He was happy to get the footage, and we were happy to get the title."

The deal gave Corman access to the Universal stock footage library, and in an interview with Business Insider, he said he ended up using footage from the TV show "Spartacus" for his SyFy Channel movie "Cyclops." 

Corman's "The Fast and the Furious" is a crime thriller from 1954 and one of Corman's earliest films, about a wanted fugitive who kidnaps a woman who happens to be a racer, and enters her car into a race so he can cross the border into Mexico and escape the cops. It is furious, it is fast, and it is actually far from the first movie to use that title. Indeed, before "The Fast and the Furious" and before the other "The Fast and the Furious," there was a 1949 Looney Tunes short titled "Fast and Furry-ous," as well as a 1939 mystery comedy starring Franchot Tone and Ann Sothern titled "Fast and Furious." 

And while Corman was never involved with the Universal "Fast & Furious" franchise, his influence can still be felt in the big-budget franchise and its escalating momentum that is straight out of a Roger Corman B-movie but at ten times the budget.