Vin Diesel Promises Two More Riddick Sequels

Four years after his character Richard B. Riddick last graced the silver screen, and some years after telling reporters that there would be another Riddick film in his future, Vin Diesel told MTV News that he no longer thinks there will one day be a Riddick sequel.

He now thinks there will be two.

“David Twowy right now is writing the scripts. The only question is whether we take a page from the ‘Lord of the Rings’ guys and try to shoot the two chapters at the same time. There are two more in mind,” he said of Riddick, the Furyan warrior first introduced in the 2000 film “Pitch Black.” “‘The Chronicles of Riddick’ was presented as a three part trilogy that would answer ‘Pitch Black’ in the same way that ‘Lord of the Rings’ answered ‘The Hobbit.’”

Those are lofty goals indeed for a movie that was very poorly received when it opened in 2004, and had a mediocre performance at the domestic box-office (where it made just $57 million). Diesel, though, is undaunted, insisting that the long space between sequels has nothing to do with convincing others to get on board, and everything to do with wanting to get it right. (To be fair, “Riddick” performed well overseas, and also spawned a best-selling video game which many considered to be better than the movie.)

“Everyone knows I love the Riddick character and I’m always working on it,” Diesel asserted. “It just takes five years to make another one because David Twohy and I are so precious about it.”

So where will Riddick go next? After taking the throne of the Necromonger King at the end of the last chapter, is there any doubt?

“Sooner or later we all end up in the Underverse,” he said of where we can expect the next chapter to take place, adding in a Riddick-like voice, “Sooner or later.”