Where to watch The Fast and the Furious (2001)

Trivia & production notes

• Paul Walker suggested combining the plots of Days of Thunder and Donnie Brasco when director Rob Cohen asked him to pitch his dream action film.
• David Ayer rewrote the script to shift the setting from New York to Los Angeles and made the story more diverse, rather than keeping it as a mostly white suburban narrative.
• Timothy Olyphant, who had just starred in Gone in 60 Seconds, turned down the role of Dominic Toretto because he thought the film would be stupid.
• Vin Diesel initially had to be convinced to take the lead role despite being suggested by producer Neal Moritz, since he had only played supporting parts up to that point.
• Eminem was offered Paul Walker's role but declined to work on 8 Mile instead.
• The film's title came from a 1954 Roger Corman film; Moritz licensed the name in exchange for trading stock footage to Corman.
• Before filming began, both Jordana Brewster and Michelle Rodriguez did not have driver's licenses and had to take driving lessons during production.
• The climactic train crossing scene was created by filming separate shots of the cars and train, then compositing them together to create the illusion of a near-miss.
• A long steel rod was used as a ramp to send Dom's car flying through a semi-truck during the final heist sequence.
• Seventy-eight cars were wrecked during filming, with three of those destruction shots appearing in the film's trailer alone.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article The Fast and the Furious (2001 film), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Rewritten for StreamShack; errors are ours — tell us about them.