I may have found the epic road at the end of Furious 7 (SPOILER ALERT)

Kinja'd!!! "MegaSuper" (megasuper)
04/07/2015 at 11:51 • Filed to: None

Kinja'd!!!5 Kinja'd!!! 7

*** SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS ***

(Sorry, title character limit, I'm referring to the road from the very final scene.)

The TF&TF series has always had some really interesting, and as far as I understand it, locally-revered filming locations that can actually be seen quite easily, or even visited, IRL. The Neptune's Net restaurant and Little Saigon gate from the first movie come to mind.

Anyways, I figured I wasn't alone when I thought to myself, "Wow! Where on Earth is that..." when the final scene pulled out to show Brian driving off into the sunset, a large body of water, curvy roads, and rolling hills in view. Since it's such a memorable scene, I figured others might be wondering where that is.

As it turns out, the music video for Wiz Khalifa's "See you Again" (the song played during this scene) contains many pieces of the final sequence. At around 3:14, you can very briefly see a sign labelled "Decker Road."

A search on Google Maps reveals that there is in fact a Decker Road in Malibu, California. This is the likely filming location because:

A) Malibu is just outside of Los Angeles,

B) which would make that large body of water the Pacific Ocean.

C) The road looks as curvy on the map as it does in the film.

D) The road has a fork in it, which would make the scene where they go their separate ways possible. Looking at the map, the other road is Encinal Canyon Road (although it is called Lechusa Road for a bit before the name changes). They're going southbound, towards the ocean, so I think that would mean Brian is on Encinal Canyon Road, and Dom is on Decker Road.

E) Traveling southbound, both roads terminate at the Pacific Coast Highway/Highway 1, which borders the Pacific Ocean. The Neptune's Net restaurant from the first movie is located in Malibu on the same road. AFAIK, the "Hey nice Ferrari / More than you can afford, pal / Smoke 'em" scene from the first movie was filmed on this road as well.

F) A bonus, possibly: Just before the scene where the two men go their separate ways, there's a scene with the rest of the cast at the beach. As I mentioned in E, the PCH touches the Pacific Coast Highway, and the two closest beaches to where the two aforementioned roads terminate appear to be Nicholas Canyon County Beach and El Matador State Beach.

Anyone know which one it was? Yes, I know, sand is not necessarily that distinct, but maybe the blue lifeguard stations you can see are a giveaway or something, I don't know.

The road can be seen here: !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

(For what it's worth, I'll mention I'm guessing that that the post-production team may have possibly done some minor CGI work on these roads because at about 3:24 in the music video, when the two cars are traveling next to each other on the same road, the dotted line separating the two lanes is white, which would mean same-direction traffic, at least in North America. However, when the road separates a few seconds later, the two now-separate roads that they are each on also have two lanes going in the same direction, and there's no parallel set of 2-lane roads nearby for traffic coming the other way.

In other words, the separate roads that Brian and Dom are traveling on should either have A) A yellow line separating them, meaning one lane per direction of traffic, OR B) If they keep the white line, then there should be another 2-lane road nearby, also with a white line, separated by trees or a physical median or something. So 2 named roads x 2 directions of traffic x 2 lanes each = 8 lanes visible.

I'm just mentioning this because my North American friends say they've never seen a rural road with an entire paved section (meaning ALL lanes on ONE paved stretch of road) being a one-way road, with no oncoming-direction equivalent very close nearby (like what's called a Dual Carriageway in the UK: !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! They also said that the dotted white line separating the two lanes is "too long" and "looks more like how they paint roads in Europe."

My theory is that they CGI'd out the yellow so that way it doesn't look like Brian is driving dangerously and into oncoming traffic for the time that his car is on the left-hand side, before the roads split. A quick YouTube search of Encinal Canyon Road does show a yellow line dividing the only two lanes that exist; but then again, it could be different on another stretch of road. If you drop the orange little Google StreetView guy at the intersection of Decker and Encinal/Lechusa, you can see the road is separated by a yellow line, not white. So I don't know, I'm just mentioning it in case it's relevant.)

A question: Does anyone know where the scene was filmed after the crew comes back to Los Angeles after Abu Dhabi they're standing just behind a guardrail, and they're staring at the Los Angeles skyline off in the distance? You can see it at 0:30 in the music video. Then at 0:36, there's what appears to be a different, further-away perspective, but that's from the music video itself, not Furious 7. You can't see a guardrail or lane markings in the second one, so maybe it's a park of some kind or some famous lookout point?

(Oh yeah, and if anyone else was curious, the scene with the bus falling off the cliff that is set in Azerbaijan was actually filmed in Colorado, although I don't know where specifically. Looks like a very pretty area though.

IMDB also mentions a scene having been filmed in Toronto, Canada; does anyone know what that might have been? I have no idea. Maybe it was a building interior during the final Los Angeles chase or maybe the cell tower Brian climbed?)

Anyways, enjoy. I just thought I'd mention this in case anyone was wondering, as the filming locations on IMDB currently are rather general, and do not mention specific scenes. This might be the most iconic road in the TF&TF series after the level crossing from the final scene of the first one!


DISCUSSION (7)


Kinja'd!!! AUDACIA > MegaSuper
04/07/2015 at 12:56

Kinja'd!!!0

I'm with you concerning the split-roads. It'd just been awkward to see him driving wrong way. That would really have screwed the Metaphor

Also that track, nah...just a stale kind of cheap Pop-HipHop IMO


Kinja'd!!! RallyWrench > MegaSuper
04/07/2015 at 13:02

Kinja'd!!!0

A lot of "Azerbaijan" was Pikes Peak. And Decker Canyon outside Malibu is indeed a ridiculous road, as are several others.


Kinja'd!!! BobbyBakerson > MegaSuper
04/23/2015 at 04:13

Kinja'd!!!2

I think the final scene, where the cars split is CGI, but it was filmed on Templin Highway off of 5. Check out this video... dude drove through the filming. If you look closely in the video, when he gets to the intersection of Templin and Old Ridge route, they’ve changed the street sign to Mullholland:

https://www.google.com/maps/@34.57676…

So, the Mullholland/Decker intersection in the film is actually Templin/Old Ridge.


Kinja'd!!! Sarah > AUDACIA
04/23/2015 at 15:09

Kinja'd!!!0

It was the Leo carillo beach where they filmed and I believe it was the mulholland highway and decker road where they were driving


Kinja'd!!! MegaSuper > BobbyBakerson
04/23/2015 at 22:54

Kinja'd!!!0

WOW!!! What a find! Yes, this is definitely correct, that intersection he stops at is literally the one from the movie. Great job BobbyBakerson, how on Earth did you find this? (Let alone my post! I thought no one cared about posts on here once they’re 2+ days old…)

A few thoughts:

1) Why do you think they changed the street name like that? My guess is because Mullholland is (sort of?) a well-known name, so perhaps to an international audience, it drives home the “Yes, this is in LA” setting?

2) WOW you can see Paul Walker’s Supra!!!

3) Why is the road brown on Google Maps? Is it not completed/a dirt road/not a public road in sections? The road above it is called Los Angeles City Power and Water Rd, which makes me think these are just rural maintenance roads or something

4) So when you say that the part where the road splits is CGI, does that mean the split literally doesn’t exist? There’s a part at 1:40 in this video where it looks like the road kind of veers off to the left, but there’s lots of dirt/sand. Maybe they just CGI’d that further out to make it look like that’s where the road splits?

5) A freaky thing: This isn’t that far from Santa Clarita, which is the city where Paul Walker died. I wonder if that was intentional, like a “nod” to local viewers? No idea how well known this area is to people in California…looks pretty rural.


Kinja'd!!! Wayne > MegaSuper
02/19/2016 at 02:03

Kinja'd!!!0

This is what I found when I searched the last drive. I’m in Oxnard, I’ll be checking it out soon, I was warned that road terminates shortly after the intersection and is blocked off and turns into a dirt road and roads that are not maintaned https://www.reddit.com/r/fastandfurio…


Kinja'd!!! Wayne > MegaSuper
02/19/2016 at 02:10

Kinja'd!!!0

Also found this http://www.discoverlosangeles.com/blog/los-angel…