"Fast & Furious 8" is undoubtedly the most-anticipated installment in the Fast series. But Paul Walker's absence will be the biggest challenge to cope with, says franchise producer Neal H. Moritz.

While completing "Fast & Furious 7" after the tragic death of Paul Walker has been considered as the greatest challenge for the franchise, the next installment "Fast & Furious 8" will be nothing less testing, hints producer Neal H. Moritz.

In his recent interview with Screen Rant, Moritz spoke about how the team plans to move forward and approach the new chapter without Brian O'Conner. He said despite the huge challenge, the franchise will happen and the existing characters will take charge of the wheels.

"We're trying to do what we always do, which is try to come at it from a character point of view and figure out where the characters would go from here. I think the thing that's made The Fast and the Furious special is obviously we have incredible action and so on. But the thing that people really relate to the most is the characters. We're lucky that we have a lot of great characters. Unfortunately, we don't have Paul anymore. His character... has moved on. But we feel like there's a lot still to be mined. That's where we'restarting. We're really talking about the characters, where they all sit right now. It's a huge challenge," said Neal.

Many fans were sceptical about the future of the Fast series without familiar faces. Especially, with Paul Walker's void to be filled, everyone thought the series may have hit a dead-end.

But now, Universal Studios is determined to move forward and go full throttle on the eighth film as it has other heavy weights to take the film in a new direction.

"Fast & Furious 8" now heavily banks on the charms of Dwayne Johnson, Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez and Jason Statham among others actors.

"Fast & Furious 8" will hit theatres on 14 April, 2017.

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