Vin Diesel seems to be borrowing from Kanye West’s The Yeezus Guide to Self-Aggrandizement when it comes to elevating junk to the status of art. Diesel thinks that Furious 7 deserves to win Best Picture. No, seriously. “It will probably win Best Picture at the Oscars,” Diesel tells Variety, “unless the Oscars don’t want to be relevant ever.” I am not sure what is relevant about dropping sports cars out of airplanes or Dwayne Johnson busting his arm out of a cast (maybe it’s like, a metaphor, for wanting to break free and you know, be yourself), but then again I don’t have Diesel’s keen insight into the movie’s magic. “There is nothing that will ever come close to the power of this thing.” I suppose if the Academy was made up of 13-year-old boys, then the film might just win. In case you’re unfamiliar with the series, which started off innocently enough with a little movie about street racing, there’s a handy ranking of the previous six films here.
The filmmakers had to scramble to rewrite Furious 7 following the tragic death of Paul Walker, and the result, thinks Diesel, is a fitting tribute to his late friend, and more than just a movie where steel machines are hurled at each other at high velocity. “We were successful in one-upping the action sequences, and adding an interesting dynamic to the world,” Diesel said. “But what the world won’t anticipate is how emotionally powerful the movie is. The head of the studio, Ron Meyer, often said when Fast 5 or Fast 6 came out, ‘If there was no number attached to these movies, they would be contenders for best picture.’ And when people see Furious 7, they are going to agree.” Variety is remarkably straight-faced in reporting Diesel’s opinion, although the article does end with a slight sting. “Maybe Diesel is on to something, after all. Or maybe not: when told about the prediction, a Universal executive chuckled and then asked to go off the record.”
