Sixth ‘Fast and Furious’ Movie Gets Release Date

Movie studios usually rush to announce release dates for their biggest franchises, especially if they want a good spot in the summer season. Universal Pictures has done just that with the “Fast and Furious” tentpole, announcing a release date for the sixth installment.

While the franchise seemed dead and nearly buried a while back, “Fast Five” fared excellently at the box office, becoming the biggest opener in the “Fast and Furious” series and breathing new life into it.

As such, a sequel was to be expected, as we also noted on a previous occasion. Universal has now announced a release date for it, Entertainment Weekly reports.

“It looks like 2012 Hollywood Walk of Fame inductee Vin Diesel will have another Fast and Furious installment to add to his increasingly diverse resume,” EW writes.

“Universal Pictures has announced that Diesel and his Furious friends will return to theaters for the 2013 Memorial Day holiday weekend, after this spring’s Fast Five posted the biggest opening weekend in the studio’s history,” the publication further says.

“Fast and Furious 6, which the studio says in a release will contain the most dangerous adventures yet for our speed-racing heroes, will be produced by Neal H. Moritz and Diesel and directed by Justin Lin,” EW adds.

No official word yet on the date when the film is supposed to go into production; reports online say that the sixth installment will probably start shooting later this year or early in 2012.

While the sixth film is expected to make at least as much money as the previous installment, “Fast Five,” star Vin Diesel hopes the latter will translate into good Oscar chances, as we also informed you some time ago.

Just because it’s an action-driven movie doesn’t mean it doesn’t stand good odds to get Oscar attention.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if there is some Oscar talk around this. I don’t know, maybe I’m just biting off what some guy from Channel 7 thought,” Diesel said in an older interview, “with a chuckle.”

“But sooner or later, people are gonna say, ‘Wait a minute, just because they are for the working class doesn’t mean they’re not great’,” he added.