Actor Vin Diesel and writer/director David Twohy finally seem to be moving forward with the third film based on the character ‘Riddick’. According to Moviehole, the currently-untitled second sequel to ‘Pitch Black’ is now casting and getting ready to go into production.
“Here’s who they’re scouting for at the moment:
– Boss Johns
– Santana
– The sexy female merc Dahl
– The smug commander Krone”
The new film is supposed to be closer in spirit to the excellent and spare ‘Pitch Black’ as opposed to epic and underrated ‘The Chronicles of Riddick’. Currently filming ‘Dredd’, Karl Urban is also rumored to possibly be reprising his role as “Vaaco”.
About the film from Moviehole:
“In a nutshell, the movie sees Riddick back on a barren planet, surrounded by monsters and mercenaries – both species who want him dead and vice versa. Though there’s a couple of potential cameos from previous Riddick movie faves, it’s mostly fresh blood this time surrounding the big guy. And speaking of fresh, the character seems to have gotten a welcome, kick-ass overhaul…he’s more brutal, bad-ass and virile (as some may say) than he was in the previous films.”
In February of 2000, ‘Pitch Black’ snuck into theaters and became a minor hit as well as establishing Vin Diesel. The fairly small budgeted ($23 million) film was tense, highly original and was full of interesting characters.
In 2004, ‘The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury’ was released on DVD. This animated tale, directed by ‘Aeon Flux’ creator Peter Chung, bridged the story gap between ‘Pitch Black’ and the epic feature film ‘The Chronicles of Riddick’. The film was an epic tale on the scale of ‘The Matrix’ or ‘Star Wars’. Unfortunately, the film had some pacing issues which lead to the inevitable “either you love it or you hate it”. Personally, I think the film is extremely underrated and I can’t wait to see what the sequel offers fans.
