\u201cFast & Furious,\u201d the fourth film in an action-movie franchise centered around the world of illegal street racing, debuts in U.S. theaters on April 3, 2009, kicking off a record-breaking $72.5 million opening weekend at the box office. \u201cFast & Furious,\u201d starring Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster and Michelle Rodriguez, recorded the all-time highest-grossing opening of any car-themed film, besting the 2006 animated feature \u201cCars,\u201d which raked in more than $60 million in its opening weekend and went on to earn more than $244 million at the box office.<\/p>\n
The road leading to \u201cFast & Furious\u201d began with the sleeper hit \u201cThe Fast and the Furious,\u201d which opened in theaters across America on June 18, 2001, and was followed by 2003\u2019s \u201c2 Fast 2 Furious\u201d and 2006\u2019s \u201cThe Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.\u201d The \u201cFast and the Furious\u201d films, which feature dramatic car scenes, pulsating music and good-looking actors and actresses, received mixed reviews from critics but were popular with audiences and spawned a line of video games.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In addition to the \u201cFast and the Furious\u201d franchise, street racing has been depicted in such popular movies as \u201cAmerican Graffiti\u201d (1973) and \u201cGrease\u201d (1978). The 1976 movie \u201cCannonball,\u201d starring David Carradine, was based on a real-life, illegal, cross-country race called the Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash. That race was first held in the early 1970s, in part to protest America\u2019s new 55 mph speed limit. (Cannonball Baker refers to Edwin \u201cCannon Ball\u201d Baker, an auto and motorcycle racer who became famous for his record-setting cross-country drives in the early 20th century.) In the 1980s, the actor Burt Reynolds also starred in a series of films inspired by the outlawed race: 1981\u2019s \u201cThe Cannonball Run,\u201d 1984\u2019s \u201cCannonball Run II\u201d and 1989\u2019s \u201cSpeed Zone!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cFast & Furious,\u201d the fourth film in an action-movie franchise centered around the world of illegal street racing, debuts in U.S. theaters on April 3, 2009, kicking off a record-breaking $72.5 million opening weekend at the box office. \u201cFast & Furious,\u201d starring Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster and Michelle Rodriguez, recorded the all-time highest-grossing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3510],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-automotive"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4198\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}