Vin Diesel is set to start production on Aug. 26 on the fourth movie of the Riddick franchise, Riddick: Furya, Deadline reported.
The movie will film in Germany, Spain and the UK. The film, which comes after 2000's Pitch Black, 2004's The Chronicles of Riddick and 2013's Riddick, will also reunite Diesel with David Twohy who both wrote and directed all the movies in the franchise.
The actor will reprise his role as Richard B. Riddick, who started in the first movie as a dangerous criminal who escapes his captors and wanted by all of the galaxy's bounty hunter.
Riddick returns home to Furya
In the upcoming movie, he returns to his home world, which he hardly remembers and one he has long-feared to be in ruins. However, when he gets there, he finds out that other Furyans exist and they're fighting for their survival against a monster. And some of the Furyans are more like Riddick than he thought they would be — for better or worse.
Diesel will also serve as producer under his One Race Films banner along with Samantha Vincent.
The actor most recently starred and produced in last year's Fast X, the 10th movie of The Fast and The Furious franchise. The film earned $740 million globally. In recent years, he also voiced Groot in the Guardians of the Galaxy films as well as other projects.
Aside from writing and directing all three of the Riddick films, Twohy's credits also include writing Harrison Ford's 1993 hit movie The Fugitive, Kevin Costner's 1995 film Waterworld and Demi Moore's 1997 action drama G.I. Jane. His most recent scriptwriting work is for the financial thriller Big Dogs, which Ridley Scott is set to direct.
Pitch Black was Diesel's breakthrough role. It scored a decent 60% Tomatometer from critics, but a better audience score at 77%. It also did well box office-wise since it made $53.2 million worldwide on a $23.2 million budget.
The sequel The Chronicles of Riddick received a bigger budget at $105 million, but only earned a disappointing $115.9 million at the worldwide box office. It was even more of a disappointment ratings-wise. Even with Dame Judi Dench in the film, it only scored a 29% Tomatometer but was redeemed by a 65% audience score.
The third film, Riddick, had the lowest score among the three movies when it came to audience rating at 56%. It fared better with critics with a 58% Tomatometer. At the box office, it made $98.3 million worldwide with a lower budget (at least compared to the second movie) at $38 million.
Is this going to resurrect Vin Diesel's old franchise?
According to Furya's filming schedule, it would most likely be released some time in 2025. It's a difficult thing, trying to predict the audience reaction to a franchise that has been inconsistent with not just its ratings and box office performance, but also its storylines.
Pitch Black did well because it came off as an original story with a charming and roguish anti-hero. However, it suffered a very common Hollywood fault when it comes to sequels: throw money at any mildly successful project.
The Chronicles of Riddick brought out the big guns in Dame Judi Dench. But she was so underutilized in the film that she didn't have much to do. The script also came across as heavy handed that even good actors such as Thandiwe Newton and Karl Urban struggled to mine anything out of it.
Nine years later, Riddick, like its title, seemed as if it had decided to go back to basics (and its roots) and delivered more of what Pitch Black did, action, and less philosophizing than Chronicles.
Hopefully, Riddick: Furya will go the way of its immediate predecessor in the sense that it will be what it should be: an action movie. Maybe it's going to be better since it will literally bring Riddick back home. Not only does the audience get a new world to explore, it might also shed light on Riddick's mysterious past.
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