Taiwanese pop star/actor Jay Chou has been added to the cast of the upcoming XXX 4. The action film will see Vin Diesel once again reprising his role as extreme sports star-turned-spy Xander Cage with D J Caruso overseeing this installment which should start shooting sometime next year.
In other news, they are making another XXX film.
I can understand Diesel’s desire to return to make a fourth chapter. The original film from 2002 was one of the movies that helped launch his career to the stratosphere. Even with him sitting out the second installment, the franchise has pulled in $694 million at the box office worldwide, so people definitely seem to like it.
But, honestly, the core conceit of the franchise, the extreme sports that make up the talents and skills that Diesel’s character uses to stay alive on his missions, feels a bit dated now. And to be honest, with the extreme sports wave seeming to have peaked just a few years earlier, it felt a bit dated in 2002. Furthermore, the original film really goes out of its way at its beginning to stake the claim that it would be different than the venerable James Bond franchise. But increasingly over the three films we have already gotten, the franchise more and more fell victim to the clichés and tropes of the Bond series. But with Diesel’s Chronicles Of Riddick crashing and burning a while back, I suppose it was inevitable that he would try his hand at reviving this series.
Chou is some interesting casting, though. A fairly big star in Asia for films such as Curse Of The Golden Flower (2006), he is not as well known here in the states. His first Hollywood role was in the regrettable The Green Hornet (2011) starring Seth Rogen. More recently he appeared in Now You See Me 2 and contributed a voice to the animated Kung Fu Panda 3 (both 2016). While I don’t expect this film to be the breakout role he needs here the States, hopefully it will lead to one that is.
