“Fast & Furious 9” filmmakers fined by UK court over stuntman injury

Christian Holub
·2 min read
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Joe Watts suffered a broken skull and brain damage after a last-minute change on a stunt.

It's not easy to make an action movie — especially one with the epic car chases and death-defying stunts common to the Fast & Furious franchise. There are costs to producing such big spectacle, and last week a U.K. court fined the makers of 2021's F9 £800,000 (more than $988,000) for an on-set injury suffered by stuntman Joe Watts, according to the BBC.

The injury took place during the 2019 filming of F9 (also known as Fast & Furious 9: The Fast Saga). Watts experienced a broken skull and brain damage after falling 25 feet, headfirst onto the ground. Per the BBC's reporting on the case, the stunt was rehearsed with Watts being thrown over another performer's right shoulder, but during filming, the stunt was changed so that he was thrown over the left shoulder instead. But the wiring and crash-mats weren't adjusted along with that change, leading to Watts' injury.

"Mr Watts' injuries were life-changing and he could have easily been killed," Roxanne Barker, an inspector for the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) that brought the suit, said in court.

<p>Everett Collection</p> Fast & Furious 9

Everett Collection

Fast & Furious 9

FF9 Pictures, a subsidiary of Universal Pictures, was fined at Luton Magistrates' Court on Friday after admitting to failings. Like previous films in the series, F9 starred Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, and Ludacris as a team of car thieves-turned-international crime fighters, and introduced John Cena to the franchise.

Stuntman injuries are indeed no laughing matter. Earlier this month the new HBO documentary David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived explored how the titular stuntman recovered from a paralyzing injury on the final Harry Potter film after doubling for star Daniel Radcliffe for a decade.

"I want to highlight the fact that stunt performers do go above and beyond to risk their lives for the sake of storytelling," Holmes told EW.

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