XXX: The Return of Xander Cage looks to be picking up steam with the announcement that writers Michael Ferris and John Brancato, late of Terminator: Salvation and Jonathan Mostow’s upcoming Surrogates, are coming on board the Vin Diesel / Rob Cohen spy action series to un-kill both the titular character and potentially Diesel’s career. Honcho Joe Roth has already successfully negotiated the return of both Diesel and Cohen to the franchise, and now that Ferris and Brancato look to be on board, the project is revving up.
Diesel and Cohen brough the franchise to life in 2002, but sat out the sequel, XXX: State of the Union, which starred Ice Cube. No word yet on whether Samuel L. Jackson will return as NSA Agent Augustus Gibbons, but considering that he’s in pretty much every movie that comes out these days, that doesn’t look to be much of an issue. And considering that Michael Roof, who portrayed gadget guru Toby Lee Shavers, has had one IMDB credit since XXX: SOTU, not too big a stretch to imagine that he could be led back with the promise of good craft service, let alone a paycheck.
I’m not ashamed to say that I liked the first movie, if at least on a brain check level. I was actually quite annoyed when they “killed” off Xander Cage offscreen in the sequel, although there was a five-minute “bridge” film created for the XXX director’s cut of the film when it came to DVD. It featured John G. Connolly as XXX: SOTU‘s Lt. Alabama Cobb, who led a team that supposedly killed Cage.
Ferris and Brancato have alternated between good work (Rise of the Machines) to horrid (Catwoman). I liked what they did on Rise given the limitations with which they had to work (no Cameron, no Hamilton, no Furlong). As for Catwoman…come on, do you really need me to go there?