Fast X director says [SPOILER]'s death was his idea

Warning: This story contains spoilers for Fast X.

The Fast & Furious family lost one of their own in Fast X.

Sociopathic villain Dante Reyes (Jason Momoa) spends the whole movie targeting Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) out of revenge for the death of his father, Hernan Reyes (Joaquim de Almeida), at the end of Fast Five. But it's Dom's family who pays the ultimate price since Dante lives by the code his father taught him: "Never accept death when suffering is owed."

Peter Mountain/Universal Leo Abelo Perry and John Cena in 'Fast X'

In the final action scene, Dante tried to kidnap and kill Dom's son, Little Brian (Leo Abelo Perry). In the ensuing chase, Dom's brother Jakob (John Cena) sacrificed himself to save them from Dante's men. Jakob flipped his cannon car upside down, crashing into the group of cars chasing after Dom and Little B, and he died in the massive explosion. "That was my idea," Fast X director Louis Leterrier tells EW. "That's one of the things I came up with early on."

When Leterrier first met Cena to discuss the plot of Fast X, he was shocked at how kind Cena was in real life after playing the villain in the previous film. "I'm like, 'That man can be a badass but cannot be a bad guy. There's no mean bone in his body,'" the director remembers. "That's why my interpretation of his character, as you saw, he's quite different [from F9]. He is my interpretation of Uncle Jakob — he learns to be an uncle and care for someone when he felt he was never loved, and now he loves someone. He felt the love when Little B hugs him and says, 'I love you, Uncle Jakob,' when Mia tells him, 'Protect him with your life,' all that stuff."

When Leterrier revealed his plan to kill off Jakob in a heroic way, Cena was, understandably, shocked. In fact, it took a little convincing. "I said to John, 'You will have to sacrifice yourself, to give the ultimate gift to your brother to save his son,' and it upset him," Leterrier says.

The director remembers explaining his reasoning behind the death to Cena as they were filming Cena's big fight scene in the Toretto house at the beginning of the movie. "I pitched him between two takes as I'm over there resetting the camera," Leterrier says. "I pitched him this thing and then he loved it. And that literally changed his performance because he understood where he was going. 'I'm going to give so much love so then the sacrifice really hurts.' And it really does hurt."

But at the rate this franchise keeps bringing family back from the dead, we likely haven't seen the last of Jakob ... right? Right?!

Fast X is now playing in theaters.

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