Vin Diesel Will Press On With 'Riddick' Sequels

Fans of the Riddick franchise -- all six of us -- thought for sure that, despite occasional rumblings to the contrary, the series was dead. The expansive, expensive Chronicles of Riddick was trashed upon release, after all, and flopped at the box office (at least domestically). Another sequel seemed foolhardy, sure to be met with gales of laughter from the same peanut gallery that so readily dismissed Chronicles.

I still think that's probably true, but I won't tell Vin Diesel, who is determined to make two more sequels happen. In an interview with MTV, he said that writer-director David Twohy is currently working on the scripts, and that the "only question" is whether they will be shot together, LoTR-style, or as two separate productions. Why did it take so long? No money problems, Diesel insists -- they just want to get it right. This was, after all, envisioned as a trilogy, with Pitch Black acting as a stand-alone companion film.

I've wasted a lot of breath defending The Chronicles of Riddick to naysayers, and have pretty much accepted that the film will never meet with much popularity. (My hopes that it would become a cult hit on DVD despite its initial chilly reception have been cruelly dashed, though the spin-off video game proved popular.) I continue to think that it's an ambitious, genuinely interesting piece of science-fiction and world-building. So I'll gladly get excited for sequels from the same creative team, even as I harbor doubts that they'll actually get made.