Not slowing down yet: Fast 10, the penultimate film in the 'Fast Saga,' sets April 2023 opening date

We still don't know how the Fast Saga will end, but now we know when the ending will begin. Entertainment Weekly reports that Universal Pictures has set a release date for Fast & Furious 10, the penultimate film in the saga that began 20 years ago with The Fast and the Furious. F10, which will continue the storylines set up at the end of this year's F9, is now set to hit theaters April 7, 2023.

It's been a long road to get to this point, and not just because we're talking about 20 years of movies that include nine main saga films and one spinoff so far. Back in 2016, the film that is now F9 was originally set for release all the way back in 2019, with the planned tenth film arriving in 2021. A number of factors, including the production of the spinoff film Hobbs & Shaw, pushed that release back to a planned spring 2020 release date, but then Universal had to put to the brakes on those plans (like everyone else) amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

F9 finally roared into theaters in the U.S. in June of this year, pulling in a global haul of more than $680 million despite the challenges of the pandemic, creating no speed bumps for the planned tenth movie. Now, with the ninth film finally out in the world and the stage set for a grand finale, we know we'll have a little less than two years to wait for the next installment.

Fast & Furious 10 (or, we hope, Fast10 Your Seatbelts) will serve as the first half of a planned two-part epic to close out the Fast Saga, which began as a small-scale street racing franchise and has since evolved into a globe hopping action spectacular. Thanks to F9, there are plenty of major plot threads for the next film to pick up, from the return of Han (and what that means for Jason Statham's Shaw) to the ongoing saga of the expanded Toretto family.

And, of course, there's the matter of what the franchise will do now that it's fulfilled its long-gestating promise to go to space.

Vin Diesel told EW recently that he hopes the tenth film will launch production in January of next year, so hopefully it won't be long before we start to get an idea of the guest stars, surprises, and plot threads awaiting us in the next Fast flick.