The Transporter is likely one of the most underrated action film franchises. They’ve never been the biggest box office hits or earned rave reviews from critics, but they have been a reliable action franchise.
The three films starring Jason Statham were all moderate box office hits, and the concept and title are easy to understand so that general audiences get what The Transporter films should be about. General audiences might not know Frank Martin, the character, but if you ask them about Jason Statham’s movie with a car, they will likely think of The Transporter even before his role in the Fast & Furious movies.
Jason Statham’s Frank Martin first appeared in 2002’s The Transporter. The sequel arrived in 2005, but Statham reprised his role in a small cameo in a separate film with Tom Cruise one year prior. Statham has a cameo at the beginning of Michael Mann’s 2004 film Collateral, which has since been retconned to be Frank Martin, aka The Transporter, which connects Collateral and The Transporter as part of the same cinematic universe. Here is how it happened.
Airport Man Becomes Frank Martin
Michael Mann’s 2004 film Collateral focuses on Los Angeles cab driver Max Durocher (Jamie Foxx), who picks up a customer named Vincent (Tom Cruise). After Max drives Vincent to a number of locations, he soon finds himself as a hostage of Vincent, a contract killer, as he continues his killing spree. It is a self-contained story, yet the movie’s opening scene is where the potentially larger cinematic universe comes into play.
In the film’s opening, Vincent is at Los Angeles International Airport and bumps into a man who gives Vincent a bag. The character is only credited as Airport Man, but the audience certainly recognizes him as actor Jason Statham. In 2005, Louis Leterrier, co-director of The Transporter and director of The Transporter 2, said while promoting the sequel to IGN that Statham’s cameo in Collateral was Frank Martin from The Transporter film.
Collateral director Michael Mann has never confirmed this, and neither has the film’s screenwriter Stuart Beattie. This is something that Leterrier has said as a retcon to Collateral that fans have just accepted, partially because it lines up with The Transporter film series.
There is the presence of Jason Statham, but also the fact that Airport Man is dressed in a suit, which is Frank Martin’s signature outfit. There is also the fact that Frank Martin is a highly skilled driver who has taken on illegal work, so it makes sense he would be in a similar line of work that would allow him to cross paths with Vincent. Finally, there is the fact that Frank Martin is delivering to Vincent a package for pick up.
The Transporter establishes one of Frank Martin’s key rules for his job is “never open the package,” so his being hired to deliver one to Vincent fits within his character. He is Frank Martin in everything but name. Yet this small cameo makes for some interesting implications for The Transporter franchise.
Collateral Is Now the Most Successful Film in the Transporter Franchise
Suppose we follow Leterrier’s claim that Jason Statham’s character in Collateral is the same as The Transporter. In that case, we can see that Collateral would be the second film in The Transporter franchise, connected by a small cameo. One year later, in 2005, The Transporter 2 was released, and Frank Martin was now working in Miami, Florida, as the driver for a family and forming a close bond with their young son. 2008’s The Transporter 3 closed out the original film trilogy.
Transporter: The Series ran for two seasons from 2012 to 2014 and saw Chris Vance step into the role of Frank Martin for Jason Statham but maintained the same continuity as the original films. In 2015, The Transporter franchise was rebooted with Ed Skrein in the lead role, starting a new timeline titled The Transporter: Refueled.
That film was a box-office disappointment and seemed to end the Transporter franchise for now. If Collateral is considered part of The Transporter film franchise, that makes it the highest-grossing film in the series, both at the domestic and worldwide box office. Below is a chart, with the films ranked by worldwide box office.
The Unprecedented Cinematic Universe That Could Be
Leterrier has said that the original intention was for Statham to reprise his role as Frank Martin in cameo roles for other films like Collateral if they did not get a sequel. Even now that the film has two sequels, a television series, and a reboot, it honestly feels like a good idea for them to revive this concept.
Having Statham appear in small cameos as The Transporter in numerous films would be a fun Easter egg for fans but also create a fascinating shared cinematic universe that could span multiple genres and even studios.
After all, Statham’s character can’t officially be Frank Martin in Collateral because he is credited as Airport Man. Lionsgate owns the Transporter films series while Collateral is produced by DreamWorks and Paramount Pictures, so the two films exist in the same universe even if for legal reasons, they don’t. If they wanted to test the water of Statham reprising his role as Frank Martin in future films in The Transporter series, cameos might be the best idea.
The most obvious franchise for him to appear in seems out of the question: Fast & Furious. Given that Frank Martin’s main job is being a great driver, he would be a perfect character to be added to the Fast & Furious film series, particularly with The Transporter 2 director Louis Leterrier being the director of Fast X and the upcoming Fast and Furious 11.
However, Statham is already in the Fast & Furious films as a different character, Deckard Shaw. Unless Leterrier and Statham wanted to have a fun meta joke about having Frank Martin appear and everyone commenting on how he looks like Shaw, this is one obvious cameo and cinematic universe connection that seems out of reach. With how odd The Fast & Furious franchise has gotten in recent years, though, it is not entirely out of the realm of impossibility to pull off something that meta.
Statham is already the star of Lionsgate franchises like The Expendables, yet with Now You See Me 3 coming out, that would make for a great Jason Statham cameo. Both the Now You See Me and The Transporter films are made by Lionsgate, and Louis Leterreier directed Now You See Me back in 2013. It would unite his two original film franchises, and make for the most intriguing cinematic universe yet.