Universal were so prepared for the possibility of Vin Diesel not returning for The Fast And The Furious sequel, they prepared two separate scripts: one with Diesels Dominic Torretto in the lead, teaming up with Paul Walker's Brian to take down drug kingpin Carter Verone, and one that didn't involve the character at all. As it happened, Diesel passed on 2 Fast 2 Furious, and so the world was introduced to Tyrese Gibson as Roman Pearce. Still, whilst Diesel doesn't return, his car does. The RX-7 that Orange Julis races throughout 2 Fast 2 Furious is actually one that double as Dom's red RX-7 in the first film. They reused a lot of their old stunt cars, in fact, with Brian racing the same models that won the major races in the first film at the start of the sequel. So why didn't Diesel fancy appearing in the second film? According to a recent interview, he went so far as to down a $25 million dollar offer because the studio didn't take a Francis Ford Coppola approach to it. They approached it like they did sequels in '80s and '90s, when they would drum up a new story unrelated for the most part, and slap the same name on it.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
