Update: Taking to his usual forum on his megahorn Facebook page, Vin Diesel has revealed a few more details about the developing fourth Riddick film, confirmed to be titled Furia. In a selfie video introducing director David Twohy about half way through, Diesel calls Furia an "origin story", and indicates that it'll likely be on the larger scale of The Chronicles Of Riddick, rather than the pared back level of Pitch Black and Riddick.
He also, at one point, seems to hint that a PG-13 rating might not be inappropriate for the new story, before Twohy growls that it'll definitely be R. Shooting, Diesel thinks, will kick off at the start of 2017. He's got a new baby, so he can't go that "dark place" quite yet. Five months fighting bears in the woods should sort him out though...
Previously: That chattering teletype sound you hear means that there has been another dispatch from the Vin Diesel News Service. Yes, the Fast & Furious man is turning his attention to another of his franchises, the Riddick films, announcing on Instagram that a Riddick spin-off TV series and another movie are both in the works.
As you can see from the post, Diesel has been keeping busy building on the world created by David Twohy, and has launched a new telly division of his company to handle a show called Merc City. Which, according to the man himself, will follow the lives of mercenaries and bounty hunters who litter the Riddick universe.
And despite the relatively mild success of 2013’s Riddick ($98 million worldwide from a $38 million budget), Diesel brings word that Twohy is at work on another, presumably low budget entry in the film series, this time called Furia, which has us thinking it’ll mean a proper trip to the growling anti-hero’s home planet.
Whether either of these comes to pass remains to be seen: you could certainly see one of the cable channels across the pond being happy to run a TV spin-off of Riddick (if the apocalyptic, and apocalyptically average, Legion can score a show that runs for two seasons, anything can), but the movies remain less of a known quantity. Still, Diesel has the huge success of the Fast movies to back him up and can point to the overseas box office performance of even poor Stateside performers such as The Last Witch Hunter of proof that people will turn out to watch him on screen.