Twelve movies were not enough. The Fast and Furious franchise, which started in 2001 with a modest street-racing thriller about stolen DVD players, is now heading to television. Peacock has greenlit a live-action series based on the property, with a 2028 debut that conveniently lines up with the theatrical release of what is supposedly the final film.
Mike Daniels and Wolfe Coleman will write and co-showrun the untitled project while also serving as executive producers. Both have recent Peacock and NBC credits. Vin Diesel is attached as executive producer alongside Neal Moritz, Pavun Shetty, Chris Morgan, and Jeff Kirschenbaum.
Diesel first floated the idea at NBCUniversal’s Upfront event in May, where he announced not one but four Fast and Furious shows for Peacock. Four. The franchise that was once about quarter-mile races and Corona beers now apparently needs its own television universe.
“Over the last decade, we’ve realized that the fans have wanted more,” Diesel said at the time. “They wanted us to expand the legacy characters, their stories.” He added that the integrity of the characters and “what makes us all feel like family” would be protected in the TV space.
The timing here is no accident. Fast Forever, billed as the concluding chapter of the main film saga, is scheduled to hit theaters on March 17, 2028. The Peacock show is set for that same year.
Universal is not letting the franchise cool off for even a few months. The theatrical ending becomes a handoff, not a farewell.
Fast Forever will reportedly feature the return of Brian O’Conner, the character originally played by the late Paul Walker, who died in a car crash in 2013. How that return will be handled remains unclear. Diesel has confirmed it but offered few details.
The broader question is whether a franchise built on escalating spectacle can translate to a television budget. Cars launched into space, submarines chased across frozen seas — the movies have grossed over $7 billion worldwide precisely because they keep raising the stakes past the point of absurdity. A streaming show will have to find a different gear, or burn through money trying to match the films’ scale.
Peacock has been hunting for a franchise anchor. The streamer has lagged behind Netflix, Disney+, and even Paramount+ in the subscriber wars, and a recognizable brand with global appeal is exactly the kind of content play NBCUniversal needs. Fast and Furious checks that box even if the recent films have shown diminishing returns at the box office.
Fast X earned $714 million worldwide in 2023, solid by most standards but a steep drop from the franchise peak of $1.5 billion for Furious 7 in 2015.
Whether the TV version expands the existing character roster or introduces entirely new faces remains unknown. Deadline’s report confirms the project is moving forward but offers almost nothing about the actual story. That vagueness is familiar territory for this franchise, which has always been better at announcing big swings than explaining them in advance.
Diesel called the show an expansion of the legacy. Universal sees it as franchise insurance. The only real certainty is that family, as always, finds a way.
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