Movie bosses at Universal are reportedly keeping Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson away from each other for fear their 2016 feud will wreck promotion for the new Fast & Furious movie.
Executives will present footage from The Fate of the Furious at CinemaCon in Las Vegas on Wednesday (29Mar17), and Johnson will most noticeably be absent.
Diesel, Charlize Theron and the rest of the cast will be at the launch.
The two stars, who become rivals in the new film, famously fell out last year (16), shortly after filming wrapped, with Johnson taking aim at Vin for his alleged bad behavior and timekeeping on set.
In August (16), Universal bosses insisted that the actors had put the past behind them, but it appears there’s still some bad blood two weeks before the film hits cinemas.
“They’re keeping them separated as much as possible,” an insider tells The Hollywood Reporter.
And it’s not as if Johnson’s schedule is preventing him from CinemaCon – he was at the theater owners convention on Tuesday (28Mar17) promoting his other new movie, Baywatch, for Paramount, and on Monday night (27Mar17), he introduced Sony’s Jumanji remake there.
The feud between the action men dates back to the end of filming, when Johnson took to Facebook to cryptically attack his castmate for his alleged unprofessional conduct.
“My female co-stars are always amazing, and I love ’em,” the former wrestler wrote. “My male co-stars however are a different story.”
He went on to add some are “chicken s**t” and “candy a**es”. The Facebook attack reportedly led to a showdown between Diesel and Johnson on set, and Vin, who is one of the new film’s producers, was singled out as the source of Johnson’s social media outburst.
The two superstars won’t meet at CinemaCon on Wednesday, but both are contracted to hit the red carpet at the Fate of the Furious premiere in New York on 8 April (17).
