Fast and Furious franchise headed to Netflix for a new animated series

The eight films in the Fast and Furious franchise have earned more than $5 billion worldwide, so it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that studio Universal Pictures has plans to give the series a shot on the small screen. What is surprising, however, is the form that television show is expected to take.

The studio has announced plans to produce a Fast and Furious animated series, with the family-friendly show set to debut on Netflix.

The Fast and Furious series will follow a new character, Tony Toretto, who happens to be the teenage cousin of Dominic Toretto, the character played by franchise star Vin Diesel across seven of the eight films. Recruited by the government to infiltrate an elite racing league, Tony and his friends are tasked with taking down the criminal organization that uses the league as a front for its operations.

DreamWorks released a promotional image from the series to accompany the announcement, and it appears to feature a variation of Dominick’s iconic Dodge Charger in the midst of a high-flying race.

Fast and Furious franchise producers Diesel, Neal Moritz, and Chris Morgan are executive producing the animated series, with Tim Hedrick (Voltron Legendary Defender) and Bret Haaland (All Hail King Julien) also serving as executive producers and showrunners.

The show is the first announced project in the next phase of animated shows and family programming developed for Netflix by DreamWorks Animation Television. That deal previously brought Guillermo del Toro’s Trollhunters series and the Madagascar spinoff series All Hail King Julien to the streaming video platform, as well as the Spirit: Riding Free series. DreamWorks’ animated projects have earned the studio 17 Emmy Awards and 21 nominations.

“The Fast and Furious franchise is a global phenomenon beloved by audiences of all ages, and we can’t wait to get started on the new animated series that will capture the action, heart, humor, and global appeal of the feature films,” Melissa Cobb, vice president of Kids and Family at Netflix, said in a statement.

While there is no official timetable for development on the animated series, the next movie to come out of the franchise will be spinoff film Hobbs and Shaw, which follows Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham’s characters from the recent sequels. That film hits theaters July 26, 2019.

The ninth and 10th installments of the Fast and Furious series are scheduled to hit theaters in April 2020 and April 2021, respectively, with the 10th film expected to be the final chapter of the series.