Movie theoreticals are the best. Like, what would happen if Han Solo came face-to-face with Indiana Jones? Thankfully, we somehow have the answer for what a meeting would look like between two action movie icons: Tom Cruise and the Transporter.
Jason Statham’s run as an action A-lister began in 2002 with The Transporter, when he played Frank Martin, a former special ops solider-turned-highly-skilled driver for hire known as the Transporter. The badass flick from future Taken producer Luc Besson was, at first, a modest hit, eventually turning into a memorable Statham-led trilogy (and a reboot that we don’t talk about). But, before Frank Martin could return in 2005’s Transporter 2, he made a truly unexpected layover in a Michael Mann classic.
Released in 2004, Mann’s Collateral stars Jamie Foxx as a Los Angeles cab driver who goes on the ride of his life when he picks up a cold-blooded assassin named Vincent, played to icy perfection by a gray-haired Tom Cruise. The action star’s first scene comes as Vincent arrives at LAX and bumps into another traveler, played by Statham. Both men drop their bags in the collision and exchange a knowing look. “I’m fine, mate,” Statham’s character says. “Enjoy L.A.” They both then, on purpose, grab the other’s luggage and go their separate ways, with Statham never appearing again.
So why cast Statham, by then an established name, in such a blink-and-you-miss-it role that he’s literally credited as “Airport Man”? Well, Collateral writer Stuart Beattie revealed that it was definitely meant to be a crossover.
“Absolutely Frank Martin of Transporter,” he said of the character in Collateral. “I asked Jason about that… Yeah, absolutely. Yes, it’s canon. Same world… the studio will never admit to that, but, in my head, absolutely it’s him.”