Exasperated by the filming in their neighborhood of the films “Fast and Furious”, residents of Los Angeles demonstrate against the saga

Turn part of the last Fast and Furious home, again? There is no question ! A district of Los Angeles that had served as a background for the films Fast and Furious was the scene Friday August 26 of demonstrations against the filming of the next part of the automotive saga. Residents have argued that their streets have since suffered an epidemic of illegal urban racing.

Protesters expressed their anger ahead of the shooting planned for this weekend in Angelino Heights, a historic district near downtown Los Angeles. The place is the fictional place of residence of Dominic Toretto, a character played by actor Vin Diesel in the saga. It’s about illegal racing, “street takeovers”, where crowds usually gather at night to watch car enthusiasts rev their engines at high speed through the streets of the city. town.

For Damian Kevitt, a resident and founder of the SAFE association, which rises against the practice, the saga Fast and Furious allowed to “glorifying illegal activity” transforming Angelino Heights into a “tourist destination for street racing”. “Fridays, Saturdays, Sunday evenings, there will be three, four, five, six cars coming here to do ‘burnouts’, and ‘donuts'”, that is to say, maneuvers where drivers make their tires squeal, assures Damian Kevitt. “There were no street races in the neighborhood before Fast and Furious was filmed there,” he adds.

Another resident, Bella, who declined to give her surname, says her children are traumatized by the noise of cars outside their home waking them up in the middle of the night. They are now too scared to go outside to play, she says, because “they’ve seen when cars get out of control and narrowly avoid running over pedestrians around the corner”.

For Bella, Universal Studios should move the filming location elsewhere, while SAFE urges the city to install speed bumps and establish zero tolerance for street racing. The association also asked Universal to add a mention in Fast and Furious encouraging people not to take part in such races.

Universal did not immediately respond to requests from AFP. The first film Fast and Furious was released in 2001 and the franchise has since become the eighth highest grossing film series in box office history, grossing $6.6 billion in the span of 10 films. Fast and Furious 10the 11th part of the saga, is due out next May.