Paul Walker's Death: Fast and Furious 7 Cast and Vin Diesel Honor Late Actor on His Birthday
Vin Diesel posted on his Facebook a video on Friday of what seems to be a birthday celebration for his "Fast and Furious" film franchise co-star and friend, Paul Walker, who passed away last year.
The video, captioned "One year ago today…Honoring our Brother" showed the crew and cast gathering around the set and singing a "Happy Birthday" song. Meanwhile, the late actor climbed up the stairs to blow the candles while also being videotaped by another co-star Tyrese Gibson (Roman Pearce in the film series).
Walker, who would have been 41 years old last Sept.12, went down to hug Diesel (Dominic Toretto) and once again sang the birthday song.
The video ended with a layover text that read "Miss you Pablo."
The Facebook post garnered over a million likes and close to a hundred thousand shares, with comments collectively saying "Happy Birthday" and "We Missed You Paul."
With the principal photography already wrapped up on the early week of July, "Fast and Furious 7" did suffer a setback when Paul Walker, who played Brian O'Conner in the series, died in a car crash on Thanksgiving day 2013. Instead of getting cancelled and revised from the start, the movie is now scheduled for a theatrical release this coming April 10, 2015.
To honor and as a tribute to the late actor, Universal Pictures and the film makers decided to rewrite Walker's part in the story and ended his character by having it "retired instead of killed."
The Daily News confirmed that the studio hired Walker's brothers, Caleb and Cody, as stand-ins for the re-shooting.
Aside from Gibson, Walker, and Diesel, majority of the cast members from the past "Fast and Furious" films will reprise their roles. These include Ludacris as Tej Parker, Michelle Rodriguez as Letty Ortiz, Dwayne Johnson as Luke Hobbs, and others.