The “Fast & Furious” franchise has come a long way since its days as a street racing saga. But now that we’re nearly nine films deep into the series, you have a chance to catch up and do so for free.
Universal is launching “Fast Fridays,” in which you will be able to watch all eight of the “Fast & Furious” movies in chronological order in theaters on the big screen, free of charge. The series will begin on April 30 and run for eight weeks up until the release of “F9” in theaters on June 25.
Finally you’ll be able to get the full sense of how the series evolved from the street racing movies to something of a superhero franchise, including the early films with Paul Walker, the one movie without Vin Diesel and its full-on transformation into an action series circa “Fast Five.”
Major theater chains across the country are participating in the program, and the series will kick off with a screening of 2001’s “The Fast and the Furious” and will conclude with a screening of “The Fate of the Furious” on June 18.
The “Fast Fridays” screening series will launch in more than 500 theaters across the U.S. and will ultimately expand to more than 900 theaters. Theaters that join the screening series after April 30 will begin their screenings with whichever film is already scheduled to screen in that week.
There’s even a podcast to go along with the series if you’re committed each week that will break down each movie in the “Fast & Furious” franchise, and the podcast will also sit down with a cast member from that film. The podcast is recorded through EW’s BINGE Podcast and starts April 30.
Participating theaters include AMC Theatres, Regal, Cinemark Theatres, Marcus Theatres, Harkins Theatres, Showcase Cinemas, Santikos Entertainment, B&B Theatres, Cinépolis USA, Georgia Theatre Company, Marquee Cinemas, Epic Theatres, EVO Cinemas, Megaplex Theatres, Maya Cinemas, Xscape Theatres, Silverspot Cinema, Golden Star Theaters, MovieScoop Cinemas and Premiere Cinemas.
The eight “Fast & Furious” movies collectively, not including the spin-off “Hobbs & Shaw,” have grossed more than $5 billion at the worldwide box office.
Find out more about the series here. Check out a schedule of each of the eight “Fast & Furious” movies below, and you can read TheWrap’s rankings of all the films here:
- 4/30: “The Fast and the Furious” (2001)
- 5/7: “2 Fast 2 Furious” (2003)
- 5/14: “The Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift” (2006)
- 5/21: “Fast & Furious” (2009)
- 5/28: “Fast Five” (2011)
- 6/4: “Fast & Furious 6” (2013)
- 6/11: “Furious 7” (2015)
- 6/18: “The Fate of the Furious” (2017)