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Podcast: New Books in Popular Culture
Episode: Dan Hassler-Forest, "Fast and Furious Franchising: How the Serialized Blockbuster Remade Hollywood" (U Minnesota Press, 2026)
Description: Fast and Furious Franchising charts the transformation of Hollywood through the story of one of its most successful cinematic universes. Released in 2001, The Fast and the Furious became an unexpected hit, developing into a seven-billion-dollar media franchise with nine direct sequels (so far), one âsidequel,â copious spin-offs, and licensing deals from board games to theme park rides.
In Fast and Furious Franchising: How the Serialized Blockbuster Remade Hollywood (U Minnesota Press, 2026), Dr. Dan Hassler-Forest shows how Fast and Furious paved the way for a new form of serialized storytelling that balanced new distribution practices and expansion into internat...