Residents expressed their anger ahead of the filming scheduled 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 local resident and founder of SAFE, which opposes the practice, "Fast and Furious" helped "glorify an illegal activity" transforming Angelino Heights into a "tourist destination for illegal street racing ".

"On Fridays, Saturdays, Sunday evenings, there will be three, four, five, six cars coming here to do + burnouts +, and + donuts +", maneuvers where drivers squeal their tires, 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 have 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 "Fast and Furious" movie was released in 2001 and the franchise has since become the eighth-highest box office movie series in history, raking in $6.6 billion in the span of 10 films.

"Fast and Furious 10", the 11th installment in the saga, is due out next May.

© 2022 AFP