The upcoming installment in the “Fast & Furious” franchise will begin filming next summer, and the movie will be a tribute to the late Paul Walker, who was part of the first seven movies.

Actress Michelle Rodriguez, who plays Letty Ortiz in the blockbuster franchise, recently spoke about the upcoming instalment at the Harper’s Bazaar Icon Party in New York City, saying the eighth movie is a tribute to Walker.

Walker passed away in November 2013 in a car accident, and “Furious 7” featured a touching send-off to the late actor at the end of the movie. Although Walker won’t be a part of “Fast & Furious 8”, there are chances that he will still be mentioned in the movie.

Rodriguez revealed that the eighth film will primarily be about street racing as Walker had expressed a desire for the film to remain true to its core theme — racing.

“[Paul] wanted to bring it back down to the core, which is the racing,” Rodriguez told People. “He was always complaining about the special effects and the blue screens.”

She also added that Walker wasn’t a fan of “exaggerated explosions and crazy plot lines,” and the production house will try to stay “true to Paul’s wishes.”

Although the film is currently in pre-production, actor Vin Diesel also spoke about the movie during the MTV Movie Awards in April, saying Walker always knew there would be a “Fast & Furious 8.”

Nicknaming the movie as “F8” aka “fate”, Diesel said: “Paul used to say that 8 was guaranteed and, in some ways, when your brother guarantees something, you have to make sure it comes to pass. So, if fate has it — fate, F8 — then you’ll get it. Furious 7 was for Paul; 8 is from Paul.”

On 12 September, Diesel paid a tribute to Walker on his birth anniversary, calling him one of the greatest human beings he has known.

“Happy Birthday to one of the greatest human beings I have ever known… one that I have been lucky to call a brother…Happy Birthday Paul… we miss you,” Diesel wrote.

“Fast and Furious 8” is set for an April 2017 release, and it will feature Dwyane Johnson, Jason Statham besides Rodriguez and Diesel. The rest of the cast is yet to be confirmed.

Rumours are rife that Eva Mendes will reprise her role as agent Monica Fuentes in “Fast and Furious 8”. Monica was a lead character in “2 Fast 2 Furious,” and according to rumours she will team up with Johnson’s Hobbs to take on a new villain in New York.

Wiz Khalifa has opened up about his tribute song for Paul Walker in the latest Fast and Furious film, saying it “connects with so many people”.

His song See You Again was used in the Furious 7 soundtrack , reportedly as Paul is seen driving off into the distance with the hit playing in the background.

The poignant tune, which features Charlie Puth on vocals, has since become the quickest-selling single of the year.

In an interview with BET, Wiz said of its growing success: “The fact that it connects with so many people, that’s what is really, really important for me so I’m f**king with it.”

He explained vocalist Charlie initially wrote the lyrics about a friend who died in a car crash, and Wiz later took it over.

He told the site: “My whole objective [when writing See You Again] was to make something that everybody can connect with. It feels personal, but it’s something that everybody can feel too. It’s not so personal that you’re disconnected to it. Basically, that was my mind frame for it. Think about family in general. Not necessarily my family or someone else’s family that everybody goes through in that situation.”

He added: “I had a lot of good direction from the Fast & Furious people as far as the texture of the song and how they wanted it to feel. What was most important, too, was to make sure that it was a celebration of life. You know, to reflect on things, but also just to celebrate what we’ve been through.”

Paul Walker was killed in a car crash on 30 November 2013 when the Porsche he was travelling in as a passenger hit a tree and caught fire.

The track marks Khalifa’s second appearance at the top of the Official Singles Chart after reaching the summit back in 2012 guesting on Maroon 5’s Payphone.

See You Again also sets a new streaming record, racking up 3.68 million streams in seven days and smashing past Ellie Goulding’s Love Me Like You Do.

The news comes as it was revealed that Fast and Furious 7 has officially become the fastest film to make $1 billion at the box office.

Not only was Furious 7 the most action-packed instalment in the franchise, it was also a beautiful tribute to the late Paul Walker. Many fans walked into theatres not knowing what to expect. How would the movie handle his absence? How did they continue Brian O’Conner’s storyline considering Paul tragically passed away halfway through filming? Even more intriguing, how was the film going to complete Paul’s unfinished scenes?

Following Paul’s untimely death, it was revealed that his two brothers, Caleb and Cody Walker would be standing in for him and helping with the production of the new enthralling movie. Since Furious 7‘s release on April 3rd, we’ve been given a deeper insight to how Paul Walker’s performance was accomplished.

Director, James Wan told Buzzfeed, “It became our obligation to finish this movie as a tribute to honor his (Paul’s) memories and his legacy,”

He revealed that the production team had to pick out “little nuances” such as facial expressions that Paul previously made in Fast Five, Fast & Furious 6, and what he had shot in Furious 7 in order to help the visual animators bring his character to life in the latest instalment. Wan said, “We literally had to build a bible, so to speak, that we could reference. Oh, when Paul is happy, he does this. When he’s sad, he does this. It was so meticulous.”

Cody and Caleb Walker, John Brotherton and a combination of CGI helped recreate Paul Walker for his unfinished scenes. Visual effects artists then replaced their faces with Paul Walker’s face to create such impressive scenes.

Wan also disclosed that they pieced together different voices to complete Paul’s lines, “Sometimes, we would use the brothers to say certain lines, because we wouldn’t necessarily have ‘Archive Paul’ saying that. So we may have the brothers saying one or two lines here, and Paul would finish off the sentence. It was this incredible jigsaw puzzle that we had to put together. I mean, Paul had a very distinct way of speaking. [Cody and Caleb] have the mannerisms, but they don’t sound quite like Paul. So there’s a lot of tweakage that we had to do. It really is a combination of so many different techniques and different methods to make it work.”

Without a doubt, did they make it work! The final scene which was so perfectly brought together, tugged at our heartstrings. Paul’s face was obviously digitally animated, but it worked superbly. Wan done absolute justice to Paul’s character and his scenes were handled with great respect. Although a lot of visual effects were used, there’s no denying that Paul Walker’s presence was there throughout the movie.

What a beautiful way to send him off, we’re sure every fan of his and of this series will be pleased.

RIP Paul Walker

I’ve just added some high quality movie stills and promotional images from Paul’s final movie, Furious 7. I’ve also added a couple of on set photos from when his brothers were helping them finish the filming of the movie. Hope y’all enjoy! Screencaps will go up as soon as the bluray is released!

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Sorry for the long delay, but I’ve finally added high quality bluray screen captures of Paul from Brick Mansions. Hope y’all enjoy.

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