We don't know why it has taken them so long as the casting seemed so obvious/perfect to us decades ago but finally Universal are said to be chasing Jason Statham to become the latest adrenaline action star junkie to join the Fast & Furious franchise. Twitch say the highly charismatic Brit cueball has entered early talks to star in the Germany set Fast Six and most likely Fast Seven, as the studio hopes to shoot both sequels back-to-back in Europe next year, which seems like a wise thing to do as Fast Five grossed over $600 million worldwide and the franchise is proving more popular than ever. Clearly a lot of Fast Five's success was adding Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson into the boiling testosterone mix and having him square off against Vin Diesel, a coming together of the muscle heavy action stars and Universal now see the virtue in adding another, The Stath, to the party that also includes Paul Walker. With the final gross of Fast Six it was clearly worth it to pull out the extra paycheque for The Rock, so they are trying to repeat that formula here, quietly creating their own kind of Expendables fantasy casting. Justin Lin, who has now helmed three movies in the franchise, is set to return to the director's chair after failing to get Terminator 5 off the ground with Arnold Schwarzenegger (as we reported recently the plan on the next Terminator is to go next October, but probably with a new director). Fast Six has a May 24th, 2013 release date set, and we imagine Fast Seven will come a year later. Both sound like more tantalising and kick-ass prospects with Statham potentially on board.