Hobbs & Shaw

Hobbs & Shaw (also known as Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw or Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw) is a 2019 American action film directed by David Leitch and written by Chris Morgan and Drew Pearce, from a story by Morgan. It is a spin-off of the The Fast Saga franchise set in between the events of 2017’s The Fate of the Furious and 2020’s F9. It is the ninth full-length film released overall. The film sees Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham reprise their roles from the main series as Luke Hobbs and Deckard Shaw respectively, and also stars Idris Elba, Vanessa Kirby, Eiza González, Cliff Curtis, and Helen Mirren. The plot follows the unlikely pairing of the titular characters as they team up with Shaw's sister (Kirby) to battle a cybernetically-enhanced terrorist (Elba) threatening the world with a deadly virus.

Series star and producer Vin Diesel first said in 2015 that possible spin-offs were in early development, and Hobbs & Shaw was officially announced in October 2017. Leitch signed on to direct in April 2018, and Kirby and Elba both joined the cast that July. Filming began in September and lasted through January 2019, mostly taking place in London and Glasgow.

Hobbs & Shaw premiered at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood on July 13, 2019, was theatrically released in the United States on August 2, 2019, and has grossed over $760 million worldwide. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, with praise for the performances of Johnson, Statham, and Kirby as well as its visual style and action choreography finesse, but criticism at its plot and runtime.

Plot
In London, Hattie Shaw and her team of MI6 agents attempt to retrieve a programmable supervirus dubbed "Snowflake" from terrorist organization Eteon. Brixton Lore, an Eteon operative with cybernetic implants that allow him to perform superhuman feats, arrives and kills all the agents except Hattie, who injects Snowflake into herself before escaping. Brixton frames Hattie for killing her team and stealing Snowflake, forcing her to go on the run.

Luke Hobbs and Deckard Shaw, Hattie's brother, are both informed of the missing virus and are reluctantly assigned to work together to track it down. After a brief meeting at a CIA black site at Leadenhall Building, Deckard goes to Hattie's house for information, while Hobbs manages to find Hattie; after a brief scuffle, he brings her to the CIA office, as Deckard then returns. The office is attacked, and Hattie is taken by Brixton, whom Deckard recognizes as an old colleague-turned-enemy he'd previously shot and supposedly killed. Hobbs and Deckard pursue and rescue Hattie during an ensuing car chase, managing to escape from Brixton, who crashes into a double-decker bus. However, Brixton frames all three as traitors via Eteon's control of global news media.

The three locate Professor Andreiko, Snowflake's creator, who informs them that to prevent Snowflake from eradicating humanity, Hattie must, while the virus is still dormant, either be killed or have the virus removed with a specialized extraction device, located in Eteon's headquarters in Chernobyl, Ukraine (site of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster). After flying undercover to Moscow and rendezvousing with Deckard's girlfriend Margarita to rearm, the three infiltrate the facility. They manage to retrieve the extraction device before escaping and destroying the facility; however, Andreiko is killed and the device is damaged during their escape.

Hobbs takes the trio to his childhood home in Samoa to visit his estranged brother Jonah, a talented mechanic, to repair the device and lay low before confronting Brixton again. Hobbs has a tense reunion with his family, but Jonah is eventually persuaded to help them by their mother. The makeshift battalion prepares for Eteon's arrival, setting up a variety of traps around the island. Jonah successfully repairs the device and starts the virus extraction, just as Brixton and his army arrive at daybreak. In the ensuing battle, all of Brixton's soldiers are defeated. Brixton retakes Hattie via helicopter; however, Hobbs, Deckard, and the Samoans bring the aircraft down. Working together, Hobbs and Deckard defeat Brixton, who is remotely terminated afterward by Eteon's director. Hobbs and Deckard send a message to the director, promising to find them, in particular Hobbs, whom he claims to have history with. The group celebrates their victory.

In mid and post-credits scenes, Hobbs brings his daughter to meet their extended family in Samoa; Deckard and Hattie are implied to bust their mother out of prison; and Hobbs receives a call from his partner, Locke, informing him that he had broken into a facility and discovered another virus worse than the Snowflake virus.

Hobbs also secretly has the London police set on Deckard in retaliation for a prank during the trip to Moscow.

Cast

 * Dwayne Johnson as Lucas Rebecca "Luke" Hobbs: A DSS agent assigned by the CIA to work with Deckard towards stopping Snowflake, in spite of their disdain for each other.
 * Jason Statham as Deckard Shaw: A mercenary formerly with British Special Forces and MI6 and Hattie's brother, who remains at odds with Hobbs, but joins forces with him in order to protect Hattie.
 * Idris Elba as Brixton Lore: A cyber-genetically enhanced terrorist working for Eteon and former MI6 field agent who has a history with Deckard.
 * Vanessa Kirby as Hattie Shaw: An MI6 field agent and sister of Deckard and Owen, who is being hunted by Lore.
 * Eiza González as Margarita: A high-profile thief, friend and former love interest to Deckard also known as Madam M.
 * Cliff Curtis as Jonah Hobbs: Luke's estranged eldest brother, a mechanic and the computer genius of the family.
 * Helen Mirren as Magdalene "Queenie" Shaw: A criminal mastermind and the mother of Deckard, Hattie and Owen.

Additionally, Eddie Marsan portrays Professor Andreiko, a two-time Nobel Prize-winning scientist who created the Snowflake virus. Leati "Roman Reigns" Anoaʻi, Josh Mauga, and John Tui portray Mateo, Timo, and Kal Hobbs, also Luke's brothers. Luke's actor Dwayne Johnson also wanted Jason Momoa to be included as one of his character's many brothers. Lori Pelenise Tuisano portrays Sefina Hobbs, Luke's mother. Lyon Beckwith, Westley LeClay, and Pingi Moli portray Luke's cousins. Eliana Su'a portrays Luke's daughter Sam Hobbs, replacing Eden Estrella from the previous two films. Rob Delaney appears as CIA agent Loeb, while director David Leitch makes a cameo appearance as an Eteon helicopter pilot, and Nathan Jones portrays a Russian fighter pilot.

Ryan Reynolds and Kevin Hart make uncredited appearances as CIA agent Victor Locke and Air Marshal Dinkley, respectively. The Eteon Director, a role that Keanu Reeves was in negotiations for, does not physically appear in the film, but is voiced by Reynolds under the pseudonym "Champ Nightingale". The character will be physically cast in a future film.

Development
In November 2015, Vin Diesel announced in an interview with Variety that potential spin-offs for the Fast & Furious series were in the early stages of development. In October 2017, Universal Pictures announced a spin-off film centered around characters Luke Hobbs and Deckard Shaw, and set a release date of July 26, 2019, with Chris Morgan returning to write the script. Variety reported that Shane Black was being considered to direct the film. The announcement of the spin-off provoked a response on Instagram by Tyrese Gibson, criticizing Johnson for causing the ninth Fast & Furious film to be delayed for another year. In February 2018, Deadpool 2 director David Leitch entered talks to direct the film. In April 2018, Leitch was confirmed as the director for the film and added David Scheunemann as a production designer.

Casting
In July 2018, Vanessa Kirby was cast in the film to play an MI6 agent and Shaw's sister, along with Idris Elba as the main villain in the film. In October 2018, Eddie Marsan joined the cast of the film, and in November 2018, Eiza Gonzalez was added as well. In January 2019, Johnson revealed that his cousin and professional wrestler Roman Reigns would appear in the film as Hobbs' brother. Additionally, he announced that Cliff Curtis, Josh Mauga, and John Tui would portray other brothers of Hobbs. Helen Mirren was also confirmed to be reprising her role from The Fate of the Furious.

Filming
Principal photography began on September 10, 2018, in London, England. Dwayne Johnson joined the production two weeks later, on September 24, 2018, after he had wrapped filming Jungle Cruise. Most filming was done at Shepperton Studios and Leavesden Studios. In October, filming moved to Glasgow, Scotland, to recreate London. Filming also took place in late 2018 at Eggborough Power Station in North Yorkshire, and in Aldershot, Hampshire. The Hawaiian island of Kaua'i was used as a stand-in for Samoa for the film's third act. Cinematographer Jonathan Sela shot the film with Arri Alexa XT and Alexa Mini digital cameras and Hawk Class-X anamorphic lenses. Production officially wrapped on January 27, 2019. Scroggins Aviation Mockup & Effects was hired to supply a UH-60 Black Hawk (s/n 79-23354) in the film. Scroggins made modification to the UH-60 and worked with the art department to supply it with a digital cockpit panel.

Post-production
The visual effects were provided by DNEG, Cantina Creative,The Third Floor, RISE FX and Framestore, supervised by Mike Brazelton and Kyle McCulloch, and produced by Dan Glass. DNEG is the main vendor for this project, with a total VFX shots of around 1000. They worked on the big action sequences in London, Chernobyl and a part of the climatic Samoan chase. The London chase sequence consists on blue screens environment and car interior, with CG reflexions to the McLaren exterior. They are few head replacements and full CG character doubles. For the latter, they were created and animated from reference photography of the main actors. The same method was applied for the McLaren and the Brixton bikes. Idris Elba was enhanced to gave him super-human abilities. Motion graphics was used to make a sort of heads up display of data and stats called the Brixton vision, to help him on the fights. For the Chernobyl action sequence, the environments was made from Lidar scanning, texture reference of a decommissioned coal power plant used for the production shootings. Then, they extended parts of the facility and modify weather conditions. Drones were fully created and animated. Explosions was created too. Finally, they handled the Samoa chopper destruction.

Framestore handled 264 VFX shots for the project, mostly the 3rd act chase sequence. They photographed the Napoli Coast on the North Side of Kauai, Hawaii before and during the main shoot. Then, they used their photography to be photo scanned and transferred into a CG version of the coastline. They had to fit the CG environment to the shoot location. They also created CG cliffs, CG foliage and some scattered rocks on flatter areas or ledges. Finally for the creation of the environments, they used many reference plate shots for the blue screens. They also photographed, photo scanned, modeled and animated all the vehicles portrayed in that sequence, including the Peterbilt, the M37, the Ratrod and the Black Hawk. The latter was cyber scanned by ClearAngle. They adapted the CG vehicles with the environment, including the lighting, tillable textures and painting scratches. Finally, they enhanced the explosions and car crashes with some debris, fire elements and craters.

Music
In May 2019, Film Music Reporter announced that Tyler Bates would compose the film's score. The first single of the soundtrack is "Getting Started" written by Kyle Williams aka producer Willyecho (Songland), and performed by American singer-songwriter Aloe Blacc and rapper JID. Idris Elba himself has produced a track featuring Cypress Hill's B-Real titled "Even If I Die"; the Hybrid remix of the track appears both in the film and during the end credits.

Marketing
The first poster was released on January 31, 2019, featuring Timothy Arumadri. The first trailer was released on February 1, 2019, and a TV spot was aired during Super Bowl LIII, on February 3, 2019. A second trailer was released on April 18, 2019. The final trailer was released on June 28, 2019.

Release
The film had its premiere at the Dolby Theatre in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles, California on July 13, 2019. The film was theatrically released in the United States on August 2, 2019, after being moved from its previous date of July 26, 2019. The film began international rollout on July 31, 2019, and was released in China on August 23. The release is in 2D, Dolby Cinema, and IMAX. A RealD 3D conversion for the film was originally planned to release but was later cancelled. However, the planned conversion was done by Stereo D.

The film released in China on August 23, 2019.

Lawsuit
In October 2018, Fast & Furious producer Neal H. Moritz filed a lawsuit against Universal Pictures for breach of oral contract and committing promissory fraud, after the distributor removed him as lead producer on Hobbs & Shaw. In May 2019, it was revealed that Universal had dropped Moritz from all future Fast & Furious installments.

Home media
Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw was released on Digital HD on October 15, 2019 and on DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K Ultra HD on November 5, 2019.

Box office
Hobbs & Shaw has grossed $173.9 million in the United States and Canada, and $586.5 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $760.4 million.

In the United States and Canada, the film was projected to gross $60–65 million from 4,253 theaters in its opening weekend, while some insiders predicted it could exceed $70 million. The film made $23.7 million on its first day, including $5.8 million from Thursday night previews, the highest amount for both Johnson and Statham outside the main Fast & Furious series. It went on to debut to $60 million over the weekend, finishing first at the box office. Similar to the main Fast & Furious films, Hobbs & Shaw had a diverse audience, with audience demographics being 40% Caucasian, 27% Hispanic, 20% African American and 13% Asian. The film dropped 58% in its second weekend to $25.3 million, remaining in first, before Good Boys replaced it in the third week.

In other territories, the film was projected to open to around $125 million from 54 countries, for a worldwide debut of $195 million. The film made $24.9 million from its first two days of international release. In its Chinese opening weekend the film made $102 million, the second highest-grossing weekend of 2019 behind Avengers: Endgame.

Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 67% based on 319 reviews, with an average rating of 6.09/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Hobbs & Shaw doesn't rev as high as the franchise's best installments, but gets decent mileage out of its well-matched stars and over-the-top action sequences." Rotten Tomatoes also ranked it at No. 8 on its list of "The Best Action Movies of 2019". On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 60 out of 100, based on 54 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A–" on an A+ to F scale, while those at PostTrak gave it an average four out of five stars.

Writing for Variety, Peter Debruge gave the film a positive review, with the summary, "Fan favorites Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham milk the friction between their characters while teaming up to save the world in this gratuitously over-the-top spinoff." Eric Kohn of IndieWire gave the film a "B–" and stated, "Strip away the meandering exposition and Hobbs & Shaw is an old-school screwball comedy that just happens to feature two major action stars."

Conversely, the Chicago Sun-Times's Richard Roeper gave the film 1.5 out of 4 stars, writing, "In case of bad-movie emergency, break glass. Over the two hour-plus running time of the painfully long, exceedingly tedious, consistently unimaginative and quite dopey Hobbs & Shaw, I counted some 13 instances in which humans and/or vehicles went crashing through panes of glass."