Since being introduced to the world back in 2000 via the surprisingly good, modestly budgeted, sci-fi action/horror film Pitch Black, Richard B. Riddick (who is generally known only as Riddick, and played by Vin Diesel) has gone on to feature in two video games, and two other films; animated film The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury, and the 2004 big-budget live-action sequel The Chronicles of Riddick; and now has a third live-action film in the works.
Due to the mixed, but mostly poor, reception that The Chronicles of Riddick received many people thought that it would have been Riddick’s final big-screen outing, but thanks to the success of its DVD sales, the sequel is going ahead at full speed; and Vin Diesel has said that the time taken to produce the next movie in the series was not about gaining support, but getting it right, because he and David Twohy (the writer and director of both Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick, who will be reprising both roles for the next film) “are so precise about it”; but nevertheless it’s still been given a budget that is far below that of the last film.
The script is already finished (and coming in at 100 pages means it will last roughly 100 minutes on screen), and sees Vin Diesel’s character becoming more bulky and mean than he has ever been; even during his Pitch Black days; after his world gets ruined once again and he comes to the realization that he’s gone soft and needs to stop caring about people as he’s become too civilized.
The new script (which has apparently changed the named from simply Riddick, to The Chronicles of Riddick: Dead Man Stalking) takes Riddick back to his roots, and then some, in a movie that’s easily R-rated, and apparently is The Road Warrior (Mad Max 2) to Pitch Black’s Mad Max; it apparently brings out the brutal killer in Riddick, after he gets left for dead on a planet inhabited by some rather unfriendly creatures, and space mercenaries, who all want to see him dead for some reason or another.
The film is due to be released around this time next year, and will be filmed (at least in part) on location in the White Desert, in Farafra, Egypt, and is reported to leaves things wide open for a possible sequel sometime in the future. But for now, before filming can begin on Riddick’s latest adventure, Vin Diesel still has to get through filming the fifth instalment of The Fast and The Furious series.
