He may have bowed out of the **xXx **reboot, but David Twohy is still talking with Vin Diesel about his other dead franchise: Riddick.
The two have been talking about another Riddick adventure for years of course, ever since The Chronicles of Riddick was laughed out of theatres worldwide, but Twohy has a plan for damage limitation. He told Bloody Disgusting that Pitch Black's sequel was hamstrung by the studio's insistence on a PG-13 rating, and that that's a concession they'd refuse in future. The phrases "too much money" and "too ambitious" also come up.
"Vin and I have decided on an approach," says Twohy, "and it'll feel more like Pitch Black than Chronicles. We're looking at the possibility of setting it up as an independent movie, selling it territory by territory and keeping an ownership stake."
But a smaller budget is a potential problem "because I don't think Vin is going to work for scale again." Er, so Diesel is the project's single biggest fan, but he likely won't do it if he doesn't get paid enough?
The critical and commercial success of the Assault on Dark Athena videogame shows that Riddick actually does still have some sort of audience. But surely, it's a cult appeal at best. If Diesel is this passionate about continuing the films, he's going to have to be a bit more flexible about his wages.