‘Fast 8’ Reveals Fresh On-Set Photos of Dwayne Johnson’s Hobbs Along with New Nickname ‘Iceman’; Tyrese Gibson Talks Female Villains

‘Fast 8’ revealed a fresh on-set photograph of Dwayne “The Rock”Johnson’s new and improved Luke Hobbs. He is also given the new nickname “The Iceman”. Meanwhile, Tyrese Gibson talks new female villains in the franchise.

According to Collider, Johnson shared a new photograph of himself in full costume as Luke Hobbs. The Instagram post was captioned, “The Iceman cometh. And I don't fucketh around. #OnSet #FastAndFurious #F8 #Hobbs#Iceman”.

It seems that the more traditional Hobbs will be transformed into a bigger, more powerful character. Johnson teased Hobb’s transition saying, “When you strip a man of all he has. All that’s important to him. You force him to return to his roots and sometimes that’s a very dangerous and twisted place.”

Luke Hobbs is a U.S. government agent who allied with Vin Diesel’s Dominic Torreto, a former criminal and professional racer. Hobbs was first introduced into the popular action franchise in Justin Lin’s ‘Fast Five’, released on April 2011. He went on to reprise his role in the sequels ‘Fast and Furious 6’ and ‘Furious 7’ before signing on to F. Gary Grey’s newest installment scheduled to be released on April 2017.

Johnson’s character may be getting a bigger role in the upcoming film. His on screen time was reduced in ‘Furious 7’ due to scheduling conflicts with other projects. It was previously revealed that the franchise may be getting a series of standalone films for certain characters and it seems that Hobbs may be up for a solo feature sometime in the future.

According to Coming Soon, Johnson will be joined by returning cast mates including Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, Elsa Pataky, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Nathalie Emmanuel, Lucas Black, and Tyrese Gibson. Other confirmed cast members include Jason Statham, Kurt Russell, Scott Eastwood, and Dame Hellen Mirren. Charlize Theron has also joined the cast as the film’s newest antagonist, with Kristofer Hivju of ‘Game of Thrones’ fame portraying one of her henchmen.

Gibson commented on Theron’s involvement as the villainess named Cypher during an interview with ET. According to Screen Rant, he said, “What we pride [ourselves in] in The Fast and Furious [franchise] is a very diversified cast that’s translating domestically and internationally in a major way. We have bits and pieces of power women in it, but we needed to bring it up a notch.”

The ‘Fast 8’ production took cast and crew all over the globe, filming in locations such as Iceland, Cuba, New York, Cleveland, and Georgia.

‘Fast 8’ is an upcoming action-thriller film scheduled to premiere in the United States on April 14, 2017. It is directed by F. Gary Grey and written by Chris Morgan. It is the sequel to James Wan’s ‘Furious 7’, which became the highest-grossing film in the franchise after earning $1.5 billion worldwide against a $190 million production budget.