David Ayer, manusförfattaren bakom Oscars-belönade Training Day samt regissören bakom filmer som End of Watch, Street Kings samt Fury var tydligen instrumental för The Fast and the Furious då han skrev om i stort sett hela manuset som Gary Scott Thompson & Erik Bergquist hade jobbat fram baserat på en street racing-artikel i motortidningen Racer X. Men inget i det manuset stämde, enligt Ayer. Filmen utspelade sig initialt i New York, samtliga huvudrollsfigurer var italienska amerikaner och bilarna var helt fel precis som retoriken och tonen. Ayer plockades in för att ge filmen autenticitet och för detta jobb fick han ingenting. Något som han diskuterar i det senaste avsnittet av podcasten Real Ones.
David Ayer om hur han tog Fast and the Furious från skräp till en av filmvärldens idag största filmserier:
"Biggest franchise in Hollywood, and I don't have any of it. I got nothing to show for it, nothing, because of the way the business works."
"When I got that script, that shit was set in New York, it was all Italian kids, right? I'm like, 'Bro, I'm not gonna take it unless I can set it in L.A. and make it look like the people I know in L.A., right?' So then I started, like, writing in people of color, and writing in the street stuff, and writing in the culture, and no one knew shit about street racing at the time."
"It's like people hijack narratives, control narratives, create narratives to empower themselves, right? And because I was always an outsider and because, like, I don't go to the fucking parties. I don't go to the meals, I don't do any of that stuff. The people that did were able to control and manage narratives because they're socialized in that part of the problem. I was never socialized in that part of the problem so I was always like the dark, creative dude, beware."