Fast & Furious: How The Franchise Remade Hollywood w/ Dan Hassler-Forest

The Fast and the Furious (Rob Cohen, 2001) was a small film about Los Angeles street racers, immigrant car culture, and a cop who didn’t want to be one. Twenty-five years on it’s a seven-billion-dollar franchise where cars get launched into space and “family” is a marketing strategy. From Echo Park to outer space — what does that arc tell us about Hollywood?

This is the first part of Cine of the Times, a new monthly Celebrating Cinema strand. Each month, critic Hugo Emmerzael (Filmkrant, Locarno) and media studies scholar Dan Hassler-Forest (Utrecht University) take one film from the century so far, ranging from arthouse to spectacular pulp. This month: the serialised blockbuster, the economics of the sequel, and how a street-racing B-movie became the template for the modern studio franchise.

Listen first. Then join us at LAB111 on Wednesday 17 June — curated clips, an extended introduction, and a post-screening discussion. Get your tickets here.

A film podcast from LAB111 — Amsterdam’s arthouse cinema for independent and cult films. Produced by Elliot Bloom.