'Hobbs And Shaw 2' Officially In Development, According To Dwayne Johnson

Upon its release last summer, Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw made $759 million worldwide on a reported budget of around $200 million. Those kinds of numbers usually mean that a sequel won't be too far behind, and now star Dwayne Johnson has confirmed that Hobbs and Shaw 2 is officially in development. Flex so hard that your cast explodes and read his comment below.

Yesterday, Johnson hosted a Q&A on his Instagram Live, and the topic of a Hobbs and Shaw sequel came up. "We are developing now the next film, the next [Hobbs & Shaw] movie, and I'm pretty excited about it...Just gotta figure out the creative right now, and the direction we're going to go," he said (h/t Collider).

I don't think anyone actually expected Universal to only make one Hobbs and Shaw film, especially since the first movie was pretty blatant about laying the groundwork for additional stories for those characters. Plus, the main Fast & Furious "Saga" only has two films left before it crosses the final finish line. (This year's F9 was bumped to 2021 due to COVID-19, and it's currently unclear exactly when Fast 10 will be released.) So while "yep, we're making a sequel to a movie that everyone thought would get a sequel" may not be the most exciting news, I'm choosing to read his comments as a subtle admission that the first Hobbs and Shaw wasn't as good as it could have been, and an announcement that they're looking to raise the bar in the sequel – possibly by bringing new blood in on the creative side.

Hobbs and Shaw should have been a home run, but it traded the heart of the Fast and Furious movies for criminally unfunny banter between Johnson and Jason Statham. Sure, it had a few solid action moments, and Ryan Reynolds (who's reuniting with Johnson for the Netflix action film Red Notice) may prove to be an entertaining third wheel in a follow-up if his character has a larger role to play. But nearly eight months after Hobbs and Shaw's release, my biggest memory of the movie is the disappointment I felt when watching it. Hopefully a re-energized (or completely different) creative team can course-correct in a sequel, answering the big question left by the first movie's ending (who is running Eteon?) and bringing in some electrifying actors to face off against the muscle-bound heroes.