Fast & Furious 7 producers have reportedly come to a consensus that
Paul Walker‘s character will not die in the upcoming film. Instead, undercover cop Brian O'Connor will retire.
Universal Pictures officially pushed the release date from this coming July to April 2015 and will move forward with the production, using the footage they shot with Walker.
Writer
Chris Morgan was brought in to revise the script last month and along with director
James Wan, and
Jeffrey Kirschenbaum, Universal's lead executive on the
Fast films, they devised a plan to tweak the existing script so that Walker would remain a part of the story, but could be written out, allowing the franchise to continue without him.
Walker's O'Conner made his first appearance in the first installment of
The Fast and the Furious series,
The Fast and the Furious in 2001. He subsequently appeared in every sequel except for 2006s
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. Walker's former cop tied with
Vin Diesel's ex-con Dominic Toretto for the most franchise appearances.
Fast & Furious 7 also stars
Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham, Tyrese Gibson, Tony Jaa, Kurt Russell, Nathalie Emmanuel, Djimon Hounsou, Lucas Black and
John Brotherton, and will open in theaters April 10th, 2015.
The show must go on.
