Posts Tagged ‘Tyrese Gibson’

Metro Canada In Focus: Franchise holds fast to franchise

Furious 7 has already generated its share of column inches from entertainment journalists. The cast has spent the last few weeks doing the junket rounds, talking to everyone with a microphone or a notepad, generating sound bites and stories that have fed newspapers, websites and television shows.

Star Michelle Rodriguez, who plays Letty Ortiz, spoke of getting “pretty crazy” after co-star Paul Walker’s death. “I was pushing myself to feel,” she said by way of explanation of some of her tabloid level behaviour in the last year.

Ludacris, who has played technical expert Tej Parker in four F&F films, told the Today show, “We’re about to make history as the most successful franchise of all time.”

Vin Diesel has talked about naming his daughter after his friend and co-star Walker—“ “There’s no other person that I was thinking about as I was cutting this umbilical cord.”—and made grand pronouncements about the quality of his film.

“Universal is going to have the biggest movie in history with this movie,” Diesel said, likely sounding as though he’s dragging every word through sandpaper. “It will probably win best picture at the Oscars, unless the Oscars don’t want to be relevant ever.”

He’s likely only half wrong. In 2011 he made a similar award season prediction about Fast 5 and while that didn’t pan out, the movie made a fortune, grossing north of six hundred million dollars worldwide.

He’s right to say that the new film will surely put the pedal to the metal and sell a lot of popcorn. Despite so-so reviews the Fast and Furious franchise has an EZ Pass to the box office fast lane, grossing two billion plus dollars since racing into theatres in 2001. “Just because they are for the working class doesn’t mean they’re not great,” Diesel said.

F&F fans enjoy the formula, which can be broken down to essentially this: Swagger interrupted by a snappy one liner, a wild car chase, a fight scene, repeat.

The movies aren’t Kierkegaard, and that’s one of the reasons they haven’t run out of gas yet. Over seven entries they’ve remained loud and proud, lowbrow and unashamed. They’re a wild celebration of muscle cars, muscle shirts and muscle heads. Like an engorged Hot Wheels set, the films are playthings for the directors—there have been 4 over the run of the series—who tow the company line time after time offering up a car crushing stew where sophisticated line readings and nuanced storytelling take a backseat to frenetic editing and in-your-face explosive action. They exist in a world where people only drink Budweiser and bastardizations like Bud Lime don’t exist. That purity of vision is the beauty of the series.

Sure, they change things up from time to time by adding new characters but casting The Rock or Jason Statham isn’t much of a stretch. Both have migrated from the kind of turbo charged action movies that could be considered companion pieces to the F&F films and both have the kind of poly-appeal that makes men want to be them and women want to see them.

Despite the loss of Paul Walker, you can bet Furious 7 won’t be the last movie in the series. As long as the formula works and the money continues to come in fast and furious Diesel and company won’t put these films in the rear view mirror.

Thinking big paid off for Tyrese RICHARD CROUSE METRO CANADA Published: June 21, 2011

Tyrese Gibson, the handsome singer and actor, thinks big.

Making his new film, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, was intense, he says, because “we were working on something the world is anticipating.” Later he mentions Michelle Obama is a fan of his book How to Get Out of Your Own Way. “I’m going to meet her one day,” he muses, “and she’s going to say, ‘Hey I got your book. Thank you so much.’ She was probably reading my book in her bed and her husband came to bed. ‘What are you reading, baby?’ ‘Oh, Tyrese’s new book.’”

Gibson doesn’t regard these overblown statements as hubris but as simple statements of fact. It’s hard to argue with him. The third Transformers movie is one of the most anticipated of the year and his book is on the New York Times Bestseller list.

The key to his success is something called “maximizing the stage.”

“It really is about maximizing the stage,” he says. “As these opportunities come up you dream with your eyes open. You want to become or be a part of the things that you see. There is only so much in your life that you can plan out. It’s arrogant to believe that the next second belongs to you. Tomorrow is a promise so now that we’re here it’s about maximizing.”

That kind of motivational motor-mouthing makes up much of his book and his very active twitter account. 1,723,206 people follow his every post, soaking up axioms like, “If it IS to BE it’s up to ME.”

“Twitter has definitely revolutionized the entertainer and fan experience,” he says. “I have a certain responsibility to the fans to make them aware of the things that I know and the things I am exposed to and things that motivate me. There are a lot of people out there who are talented, enthusiastic and fired up about life but they have no sense of direction. Through twitter I have been able to put some information out there that people are responding to.”

Thinking big has paid off for Gibson.

“I shot both Fast Five and Transformers simultaneously over seven months,” he says. “Hanging out with Vin Diesel and Paul Walker from 6 am to 11 am and then getting on a private plane to get to Michael Bay. The same day; two different movie sets. That’s a good life right there baby.”