I wasn’t a big fan of 2002’s XXX, the spy thriller that starred Vin Diesel and was directed by Rob Cohen. For a film that announced it was going to be a different type of spy film by symbolically killing a James Bond stand-in in its opening minutes, it almost immediately fell back upon numerous old spy film tropes. Diesel starred as an extreme sports champion who gets recruited by the government for a dangerous, top secret mission. Still, audiences liked it enough for a sequel, XXX: State Of The Union, to be greenlit, though both Diesel and Cohen passed on participating. Ice Cube stepped in in front of the cameras and Lee Tamahori stepped in behind the cameras.
Columbia Pictures is now in negotiations with Joe Roth, who produced the two previous XXX films, for a third installment, one that would hopefully bring back both Diesel and Cohen. The film is tentatively titled XXX: The Return Of Xander Cage, though that could change when once they get around to hiring someone to write a script.
I find this an interesting move on Columbia’s part, one that seems very reliant on audiences wanting to return to this franchise. Both Cohen and Diesel had it rough this past summer. Diesel’s futuristic Babylon AD was dumped by its studio, Twentieth Century Fox, amidst bad reviews from journalists and even the film’s director, while Cohen’s The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor – ironically, also a third installment of a franchise – also underpreformed with critics and at the box office. Columbia must be really hungry for a tentpole picture to be going back to this well.
Via Variety.
