Did An Obscure '80s Film Influence The Biggest Stunt In Furious 7?

In James Wan's "Furious 7," released in 2015, Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker) find themselves inside a supercar located many stories up in an Abu Dhabi skyscraper. They desperately need a chip that's embedded in the vehicle (don't ask), but things go south when the villains realize their plan. In order to escape, Dom does the only thing he knows how to do: he drives his way out of the situation, despite being indoors. After knocking over several of the baddies and evading many a gunshot, Dom realizes the only way the team can accomplish their mission is if he and Brian speed through the window and crash into a neighboring skyscraper. 

The scene is, of course, absolutely ridiculous, but Wan and his team give it a sense of majesty and wonder, and the result is one of the best stunts in "Fast and Furious" franchise history.

But what if I told you that almost the exact same thing happened in a movie in 1986?

I had never heard of "Black Moon Rising," but as soon as I learned about its existence, I knew I had to watch it immediately. You're telling me the great John Carpenter wrote a film in which Tommy Lee Jones plays a former thief who does secret deals with the government? Linda Hamilton plays a car thief who steals an experimental prototype vehicle that can drive faster than 300 miles per hour? And for plot reasons, Tommy Lee Jones orchestrates the elaborate heist of that vehicle to return it to its rightful owners? Hell yeah.

But imagine my shock when I saw the climactic scene, which contains virtually all of the same plot points as "Furious 7." Imagine my further shock when I watched "Furious 7" featurettes about the making of their scene, and no one mentions "Black Moon Rising" as an inspiration. In fact, I couldn't find a single instance on the entire internet where anyone associated with the movie ever admitted that "Black Moon Rising" was an inspiration. 

So I reached out to Jack Gill, who served as one of the second unit directors of "Furious 7," and asked him directly if there was any awareness of the 1986 movie on the set of "Furious 7," or if there were any conversations about that film at all while envisioning or executing the "Furious" stunt. "I've never heard of the movie," Gill admitted, explaining that the production team was running through possible ways of getting the supercar out of their building before they realized if the buildings were close enough together, they could just drive it straight out across the skies. I realize "Black Moon Rising" is pretty obscure, but it remains surprising that not only had no one on the "Furious 7" team stumbled across that scene while doing research, but that Gill was still unaware of the earlier film as of July 2024.

Anyway, wild stuff! And "Black Moon Rising" is absolutely worth watching, by the way. It's streaming for free right now on Tubi.

In the meantime, I spoke more about this film on today's episode of the /Film Daily podcast:

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