Today the press day for Babylon A.D. went down in NYC, and Coming Soon got a wild bit of info from Vin Diesel. In addition to being part of Fast and Furious, the arguably superfluous fourth film in the franchise, Diesel is directing a twenty-minute prequel to the film. (Note that it’s a prequel to the fourth film, not to the series, so it’s really a bridge short, or an introduction, or…something. The gymnastics of defining a prequel to a sequel as something other than the feature that is being given the sequel make my head hurt.)
This fourth film is meant to follow on the story from the first. We don’t know the story behind Diesel’s short but since Michelle Rodriguez will appear along with Sung Kang (from Tokyo Drift) we might surmise that it will tie the third film into the first and fourth rather than retconning it into non-canon status. (When I find myself typing stuff like this I want to swim in a river full of candiru, those spiky fish that zip into a man’s urethra.) We also don’t know where the short will run. Could be theatrically (probably not) or On Demand, on the web or (obviously) on DVD.