Behind the Production Design and Mind-Blowing Vehicles of F9

Several years after the extraordinary, record-smashing opening of The Fate of the Furious, production on the long-awaited ninth chapter, F9, began in London during summer 2019.  As is the Fast way, multiple film units began filming simultaneously across the globe. While Justin Lin was overseeing the main unit with principal cast in the U.K., second unit director and stunt coordinator Spiro Razatos and veteran Fast second unit stunt coordinator ANDY GILL and their crew led the charge in Thailand with the film’s hard-driving, gravity-defying action. 

The film’s opening action sequence, set in Central America, was actually filmed by the second-unit team over an eight-week period in several remote areas of southern Thailand. The crew then decamped to the country of Georgia to film in the capital city of Tbilisi.

While the majority of filming took place on soundstages, a dedicated U.K.-based stunt unit filmed through the streets of London, traversing through the city’s most notable landmarks. They then spent close to four weeks on and above the streets of Edinburgh, Scotland, capturing dizzying rooftop action as Dom chases Jakob while Roman, Tej and Ramsey pursue Otto and his hired mercenaries speeding through the streets. The two-pronged action sequence ended up being one of the biggest film production presences in Scotland’s capital city, filming along the Royal Mile, St. Giles Church, and the National Museum of Scotland, among others.

Once filming concluded in London and Tbilisi, cast and crew made one more stop. Both on-screen and off, in the Fast films all roads lead home, and both main and second units returned to Los Angeles to film for the remainder of principal photography. On the last night of filming, Lin, joined by Diesel, returned to the streets of East L.A., where it all began.

Based out of soundstages at Leavesden Studios, outside of London, Roelfs and his team transformed the dirt backlot into the lush jungle countryside of Montequinto, a fictitious Central American republic. Amid the wreckage of Mr. Nobody’s downed aircraft, Dom, Letty and the team sift through smoking rubble to find clues to Mr. Nobody and Cipher’s whereabout.

Moving to the soundstages, Roelfs designed the sets for the neon-laden streets, noodle shops and apartment buildings of Tokyo, where Letty and Mia reconnect, and the cavernous underground and unsanctioned hideout that Mr. Nobody masterminded decades ago, which becomes a kind of safe house for Dom and his crew and ultimately the site of emotional reunions of every kind. Roelfs and his top-flight team also designed and built other key sets, including Otto’s hangar, his base of operations with Jakob, and Buddy’s garage, where two old friends have a long overdue heart-to-heart.

As with most of the returning crew, especially those who have worked closely with Lin and the cast, Hays is adept at creating fresh, modern updated costume design that still embodies each character’s updated tastes. “For F9, Justin really wanted to bring the tone and feel for the film back to its roots while still pushing boundaries a bit and going a little more modern with the costume design,” Hays says. “I realized a long time ago to keep my designs quite simple with our leads so that their acting and their characters can shine through. I don’t want the audience thinking too much about what they’re wearing. We know these characters as kids from the streets of East L.A., and now they’re these international action heroes. So even though we’re trying to keep them simple and relatable, they do have money, so it’s nice to see that some of the pieces they wear are a little more expensive and just a little more special because they’ve seen the world and have no boundaries.” 

With the last two chapters of the franchise, multiple film units shooting across several continents have become the gold standard for Fast films. For the picture vehicle department on F9, that necessitated overseeing the herculean task of sourcing and building dozens upon dozens of picture-car vehicles. From exotics, American muscles, Japanese imports, and military armored and off-vehicles, to custom-built specialty cars and rigs with the production’s special-effects teams, the filmmakers relied on their veteran go-to team to create the most thrilling vehicle fleet in Fast franchise history.

A big element of the third-act chase sequence is the monstrous 14-foot-high, 26-ton, three-section armored vehicle dubbed the ARMADILLO. Working with production designer Jan Roelfs, King was tasked with the gargantuan effort of engineering and executing another custom build that would meet both the creative demands of the scripted action and the functional demands of stunt driving at high speeds along the curved, hilly streets of Tbilisi. It took King and his department fourmonths to work out the mechanical, electrical and fabrication requirements to complete two versions of the Armadillo and to have them prepped and ready for filming in Tbilisi.

King ended up sourcing dozens of exotic super cars for Otto’s exclusive Tuner Party as well as for the posh party Queenie Shaw crashes. For that Queenie scene, shot along the street outside high-end jeweler Boodles in the tiny London neighborhood of Mayfair, King’s team showcased the NOBLE M600 along with a BUGATTI VEYRON, a BENTLEY CONTINENTAL GT,a ROLLS ROYCE WRAITH, an ASTON MARTIN RAPIDE, a MORGAN AERO 8 and a MERCEDES SLR McLAREN. All said, close to £2.5 million (approx. $1.8 million U.S.) worth of high-end super cars graced the set for filming just that one scene.

With a massive number of custom-built vehicles needed for filming across three different continents, McCarthy and King divvied up the labor-intensive work to give Lin and second-unit director Spiro Razatos every vehicular weapon in their collective arsenal to pull off the action beats for numerous sequences, each with distinct requirements and aesthetics. 

Off-road ATVs, motorbikes, military trucks, American classic cars and high-end performance vehicles were all essential to the action Lin visualized.  And, in a first for the franchise, one car gets strapped to jet engines. Tej and Roman unwittingly find Sean, Twinkie and Earl acting like crazy scientists as they test an ingeniously modified 1984 PONTIAC FIERO. The results were literally out of this world.

Over a dozen U.K.-based car enthusiasts gladly accepted the invitation to show off their prized four-wheeled babies worth close to £10 million (approx. $7.3 million U.S.) including aTVR SAGARIS, a LAMBORGHINI AVENTADOR SVJ, a LEXUS LFA, a LOTUS EVORA, a MERCEDES AMG GT R, a LAMBORGHINI COUNTACH ANNIVERSARY EDITION, a McLAREN 720S and the pièce de résistance, an APOLLO IE and a FERRARI LA FERRARI.

F9, the ninth chapter in the Fast & Furious Saga will be in theatres on June 25, 2021.