How Paul Walker helped create a fast and furious box-office franchise

Hollywood executives love a movie franchise: a series of films with an in-built audience who return time and again to enjoy their favorite characters, stories and themes. Such box-office gold is usually based on pre-existing properties, for example comics ("Iron Man" et al), novels ("The Hunger Games") -- even theme-park rides ("Pirates of The Caribbean").



But the strong interest that followed the death of actor Paul Walker last weekend has been boosted by his crucial role in an unlikely franchise whose appeal has built steadily during the past decade, especially outside the United States.

The six "Fast & Furious" films have spawned a globe-trotting, block-busting series, generating $2.4 billion in ticket sales alone since the turn of the century. Back then few predicted that a mid-budget actioner with little-known actors set in the hi-octane world of LA street-racing would still be going strong 12 years later.

How did it happen?

Released in June 2001, "The Fast And The Furious" was a testosterone-fuelled boys-with-toys movie set around a cat-and-mouse game between an undercover cop (Walker) and his prey (Vin Diesel).

"I remember being in Honolulu when Mark Shmuger (former co-chairman of Universal Pictures) called to say they'd just had the most amazing test screening of a film we'd never heard of, called 'The Fast And The Furious,' recalls Andrew Cripps, former president and COO of UIP, the distribution joint-venture between Universal and Paramount which released the first three films internationally.