Fast & Furious 9

IIRC the talk was they were going to shoot two more, back-to-back & they'd be the last films. So I guess only one shoot left, but two movies. The same is going on with the Mission Impossible films, they're shooting numbers 7 & 8 back-to-back.

Yup Back to the Future was back-to-back. By then Robert Zemeckis had arguably entered his "blank cheque" phase, so I'd say had the clout to persuade the studio to let him shoot a Western under the guise of a BttF sequel 😁

You missed another, even bigger example that arguably remains the Daddy of back-to-back shoots IMO: the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy was one giant shoot out in NZ. I doubt any studio would ever give any production that degree of latitude ever again; keep meaning to do a deep-dive into how it ever came to pass in the first place. That this relatively unknown Kiwi director, with only a few subversive horror films in his CV, got to make the biggest Epic of modern times.

Not sure why Hollywood doesn't do them more often; its finances are a bit batty at the best of times so presumably there's some counter-intuitive reason. Mega-shoots are probably seen as too much of a risk, in case that first film flops hard.

I have little time for the series, and certainly wouldn't be mistaken for a fan... but I gotta respect how 4 middling and forgettable films in, the franchise completely reinvented itself with such successful energy, it became a global blockbuster juggernaut. So much so it remains the only standout success in the post CoVid landscape.

That's kinda unheard of IMO; think of B-Movie series at their 5th iteration - and how many became phenomena? And in cracking the Chinese market in a manner Disney would kill for with Star Wars (for instance), F&F effectively ensured Vin Diesel wouldn't retire in privation.

Well, that video has aged like butter.

I'm honestly surprised he hasn't tried at this stage. All his projects seem to be heavily led by him - you'd have thought by now he'd try sitting in the big chair.

Going by a making of from the last one, it's both. They do shoot film stunts but stitch much of the crazier action together with CGI. IIRC in this thread I shared a making of that showed this.