Furious 7’s Original Ending Before Paul Walker’s Death Finally Revealed 10 Years Later

New details about Furious 7‘s original ending before Paul Walker’s death have now been revealed. The seventh film in the Fast & Furious franchise came out in 2015, nearly two years after the Brian O’Conner star tragically passed away in a car crash that delayed the film and brought sweeping changes to the finished product.

Ultimately, with the blessing of Walker’s family, Furious 7 forged ahead, with the ending being completely overhauled to have an emotional goodbye to Walker. Now, Barry Hertz’s new book “Welcome To The Family,” about the making of the Fast & Furious franchise (which we received an early copy of), has revealed new details about how Furious 7 was originally meant to end.

In the chapter about Furious 7‘s development and how it changed after Walker’s death, the book reveals how it was planned to end at first with Dom, Brian, and the rest of the crew visiting a familiar location, destroying “God’s Eye,” and setting the stage for another adventure:

Originally, (Furious 7) ended with the whole crew back at Neptune’s Net, the Malibu seafood joint off Pacific Coast Highway where Brian and Dom had bonded in the first movie, celebrating the successful retrieval of the “God’s Eye” MacGuffin that Jason Statham’s villain, Deckard Shaw, was pursuing. But instead of giving the device back to the mysterious government agent Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell), who had just awarded the congressional team commendations, Dom crushes the God’s Eye under his boot, saying that it was too powerful for any one person to possess. The team then roars off onto the PCH, with the smiling Dom crumpling the commendation into a ball and tossing it out the window as the score swells and the end credits roll.

Hertz included more details later on, too. Part of the ending would also have been seen “the team picked their next destination by throwing a knife at a nearby map, letting ‘fate’ decide.” All of this was eventually scrapped following Walker’s death as the movie’s entire third act was rewritten.

The conclusion is very different from what Furious 7 did in the aftermath of tragedy. The film now ends with Brian and Dom driving side-by-side on a splitting highway after the entire team reflects on how things will be different now, with Brian set up to retire from their adventures to be with his family as “See You Again” by Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth blares.

Beyond Brian’s fate, it is noticeable how different the original ending was. The God’s Eye is not destroyed in Furious 7with the hacking device even coming back in The Fate of the Furious and Fast X. This would not have been possible if Dom destroyed it as originally intended.

Additionally, Furious 7‘s original ending attempted to turn Dom and his crew into more legitimate heroes by making their services acknowledged and rewarded by the United States government. Rather than remain daring former outlaws with clean slates, they could’ve become a step closer to being formal agents working for Mr. Nobody’s organization.

None of this came to fruition after Walker’s death. Some of these elements could’ve been caught, but Furious 7 pivoted to make sure that its final moments gave a proper farewell to one of the franchise’s leading men after using CGI and his brothers to finish Walker’s scenes.

With $1.5 billion at the box office and strong reviews, Furious 7‘s ending is seen as one of its greatest strengths, wonderfully navigating honoring Paul Walker’s life and his contributions to the franchise, all while giving Brian a good conclusion. Although that was never the original intent, the end result is tremendous given the circumstances.

“Welcome To The Family: The Explosive Story Behind Fast & Furious, The Blockbusters That Supercharged The World” is out now