Vin Diesel has been talking for some time about trying to get a third film started featuring his future mercenary character Riddick. First introduced in the low-budget action film Pitch Black, Diesel reprised the role for the 2004 sequel The Chronicles Of Riddick, although its sprawling storyline turned off most critics and failed to attract an audience. Diesel has stated previously that he and writer/director David Twohy have been working on a third film that would pick up after the second film but address some story threads left tangling at the end of the first film.
Moviehole is reporting that the film, at one time titled The Chronicles Of Riddick: Dead Man Stalking but now going simply as Riddick, has begun casting. Note, however, that Universal has not confirmed this story, so I would suggest keeping this in the “rumor” category for the time being.
The new film will once again feature Riddick stranded on a barren planet on the run from numerous mercenaries and monsters who would like to see him dead. According to Moviehole, there may be cameos from the surviving characters from Pitch Black as well as some folks from Chronicles Of Riddick. New characters added for this film include Boss Johns, Santana, a “sexy female merc” named Dahl and “the smug commander” Krone.
While I really enjoyed Pitch Black as a great little science-fiction/thriller in the vein of Ridley Scott’s Alien, I found Chronicles Of Riddick a bloated bore. If the franchise is moving back towards the feel of Pitch Black as Moviehole’s reporting suggests (I’ve actually had a 2009 draft of Dead Man Stalking for some time that I haven’t gotten around to reading. Perhaps I might it move up higher on my “To Read” pile this weekend.) I would say that is a step in the right direction.
