After a few months of teasing and negotiating, it seems that the follow-up to** Pitch Black** and The Chronicles of Riddick is finally up and running, with casting for what's so-far known simply as Riddick officially underway.
And with casting news comes character reveals. In the first round of auditions, director David Twohy and his casting director Anne McCarthy are on the lookout for "sexy female mercenary" Dahl, "smug commander" Krone, the undescribed henchman Santana (not Joey, as far as we're aware), and [POSSIBLE SPOILER] Boss Johns, who's the father of the Johns played by Cole Hauser previously, and who's apparently rather keen to learn what happened to his son on Hades.
Moviehole have seen a script of undisclosed age and draft, and are saying that Riddick is much more aligned with** Pitch Black** than** Chronicles**, making little or no mention of Furya or the (ahem) Underverse, and quickly dispensing with the business that saw Riddick as leader of an army of (ahem) Necromongers at the end of the last film. There's apparently a small role for Vaako, which might mean Karl Urban will be back for a cameo. And if that lot made us reasonably optimistic, we're slightly concerned at the mention of a twelve-year-old "Alpha Kid", who has magic powers and shiney eyes like Riddick's...
Vin Diesel is, of course, starring (after a bit of soul searching), and the start-date is currently supposed to be sometime in September. We're rather liking the concept art that Diesel revealed on his Facepage...
