That Was Fast (and Furious): ‘F9’ is Coming to On Demand This Friday

F9, the latest entry in the wildly popular Fast and Furious saga, just opened in theaters on June 25. Now, it’s racing to a TV near you, because the film is headed to On Demand this Friday. There was a time when such a short window between theatrical and digital was unheard of, but these are unprecedented times. As much as people in the industry want to hope that the big screen experience is back, the fact of the matter is we still don’t have COVID under control. So if you were hesitant to head to a theater to watch Dom and his family drive their cars into space, your patience will soon be rewarded.

Here’s a Jet Engine Strapped to a Go Kart

F9 is headed to On Demand on Friday, July 30, and when the time comes you can find it right here. To kick off this big news, Universal has sent out a video that isn’t from the film at all! Uh, thanks, I guess? The video shows “YouTube filmmaker Devin Graham filmed a street race through Los Angeles between Dom’s Hellcat Charger, a Go-Kart with a Jet Engine on it and a remote control car recreating iconic moments from all nine franchise titles.” Sure! Why not!

There’s something…poetic? Ironic? Tragic? I don’t even know the term to apply here, but there’s something interesting about the fact that Universal deliberately kept delaying the theatrical release of F9, only to now drop it onto On Demand a little over a month after it hit the big screen. So it goes! We can probably expect to see more and more of this, at least for the rest of this year. And then, who knows? Maybe everything will magically be back to normal in 2022.

A World-Shattering Plot

In F9, “Vin Diesel’s Dom Toretto is leading a quiet life off the grid with Letty and his son, little Brian, but they know that danger always lurks just over their peaceful horizon. This time, that threat will force Dom to confront the sins of his past if he’s going to save those he loves most. His crew joins together to stop a world-shattering plot led by the most skilled assassin and high-performance driver they’ve ever encountered: a man who also happens to be Dom’s forsaken brother, Jakob (John Cena).”

I haven’t seen F9, but our own Hoai-Tran Bui reviewed the film, and wrote:

The Fast and Furious franchise has never cared about staying grounded. Even the scrappy 2001 original hovered an inch or two off the streets it burnt up every night with cans of NOS. But F9, the latest installment in the streetracing-turned-spy-heist series, does pose the question: how high is too high? Director Justin Lin, who makes a glorious return to Fast and Furious after stepping away from the franchise following Fast & Furious 6, hasn’t found that ceiling yet. And lord help us if he ever does.

The cast includes Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Jordana Brewster, Nathalie Emmanuel, John Cena, and Sung Kang, with Helen Mirren and Charlize Theron. Justin Lin directs.

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