the chronicles of riddick

So...has it come to this? Am I really writing a post based on a Facebook status update? Looks like I am, because the update comes via Vin Diesel himself:

"The Riddick team is in New Zealand location scouting already...that's exciting."

He also notes that he loves "hiding in plain sight" and enjoys reading his fans' comments while on board a plane. You keep it real, Vin. You keep it real. Going back in time a few weeks, Diesel previously posted:

"The Riddick script is completed...great job DT."

Some mind-boggling sleuthing allows us to assume that DT is none other than David Twohy, writer and director of the small, clever and intense Pitch Black, which introduced the goggled, mumbling anti-hero Riddick to movie screens, as well as the big, dumb and boring The Chronicles of Riddick, which did its best to guarantee Riddick never gracing a movie screen again.

What can we take from this? They have a script. They're scouting locations. But is this movie actually going to happen? Making this film has been an uphill battle ever since The Chronicles of Riddick tanked but Twohy and Diesel obviously have a great love for the character and have previously stated that this will be a smaller film on the scale of Pitch Black. This is good news. If they cut away the bloat and place Riddick in an intense sci-fi thriller where the stakes are personal instead of "SAVING THE GALAXY FROM EVIL EMPIRE," I'd be prepared to watch Riddick again. And God knows Dielsel and Twohy could use a hit at this point.

(via Dark Horizons)

I remember thinking before The Chronicles of Riddick came out that David Twohy was on a course to become another science fiction visionary, not unlike Ridley Scott or James Cameron. It looked like a big budget, galaxy sweeping actioner, but more importantly it looked like Twohy was doing something Hollywood so rarely does: world building. It was clear his agenda with Chronicles was to transplant a character from Pitch Black, which is essentially just a creature feature, into an entire universe in which that character made sense, a universe that promised different races and different colonies on different planets. And if there is one thing big budget Hollywood is wary towards, it's difference.

Studios like a real world anchor for their tent poles and The Chronicles of Riddick had lava planets and an intergalactic cult. That's not as marketable as, say, Xbox 360s turning into killer robots or Iron Man eating a Burger King Whopper at a press conference. Which is a pitfall David Twohy seems to be acknowledging these days. Rumors of a new Riddick film / the delivery of the once planned third Riddick film, started months ago when Vin Diesel made Universal a silo of cash with Fast and Furious, but what that might entail was hazy until now.