David Eyre entered the film business as a screenwriter in 2000, working on Jonathan Mostow’s U-571, but two of his most famous collaborations came the following year, Training Day and Fast and Furious, the first chapter of what subsequently continued. become one of Hollywood’s greatest sagas.
David Eyre complains he didn’t get anything from the Fast & Furious saga
The Fast saga released its 10th installment this year, and it’s nearing an epic conclusion with its next film (or maybe two), as well as an upcoming project starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson after he became part of the first spin-off “Fast and the Furious”. Hobbs & Shaw series.
But even though Ayer has built a solid career since his involvement in the saga, he feels his contributions are forgotten and he feels left out. Speaking to Jon Bernthal on his Real One’s podcast, the director lashed out at the Fast & Furious franchise and especially the industry for having “nothing to show” after being part of such a successful project (courtesy of Entertainment Weekly): “Hollywood’s most big franchise, and I don’t have one. I have nothing to show, nothing about how the business works. (…) It’s like people owning narratives, controlling them, creating them to give themselves power, right? And because I’ve always been an outsider and because I don’t go to fucking parties. I don’t go to lunch, I don’t do any of that. The people who did this were able to control and manage the narratives because they were socialized in that part of the problem. I was never familiar with that part of the problem, so I’ve always been a dark creative type, mind you.”
The original screenplay for the first film was written by Gary Scott Thompson and Eric Bergquist, but David Ayer says in an interview that it was he who gave the story real meaning and depth by making some major changes:
“When I got this script, which was set in New York, they were all Italian guys, right?” he said to Bernthal. “I’m like, ‘Bro, I won’t take this if I can’t set it up in LA and make people I know look like this in LA, right?’ So I started writing about black people, writing about street stuff, writing about culture, and at that time no one knew anything about street racing. I went to the shop in the Valley and met the first guys who were hacking fuel curves for injectors and stuff and they just figured out how it works and showed me and I’m like, “Oh my gosh, I put that in a movie” .
The first Fast & Furious movie focused on the world of street racing and how marginalized groups like the Toretto family lived inconspicuously by stealing and fixing their racing cars for a living. However, the storyline changed as the films got bigger over time, and eventually left this world entirely when the franchise went into space. Wherever he went in his finale, he is very far from where he started with David Ayer.