Here’s the moral of the Vin Diesel story: if you make a silly car movie that ends up being one of Universal’s few big hits in a year when they took a lot of risks and didn’t see many rewards, you can get your weird Space Conan movie that nobody saw sequelized. Yes, Riddick 2/Pitch Black 3 is happening.
I never thought it could happen, but I never counted on the power of positive thinking. And the power of stepping away from the nonsense of The Chronicles of Riddick; according to Variety the new movie will be closer in tone to the excellent Pitch Black and will shy away from exploring the universe Riddick lives in and just be about the guy. So does this mean no trip to the Underverse?
David Twohy is back to write and direct, and production should be starting within a year, as Universal is trying to make the timing work with Fast 5, the fifth Fast and Furious film, which Diesel has signed up for.
Universal will get the domestic while Lionsgate is selling the international rights at the Berlin Film Festival right now.
The title? Riddick. I’m betting they position this as Pitch Black 2, letting the many, many people who didn’t see or didn’t like The Chronicles of Riddick just skip that one and enjoy more of what they liked about that spunky little sci-fi/horror movie.