In Hollywood, there’s no greater risk than mounting a vanity project. You know the type – when a director or star achieves superstar level, they can’t resist the temptation to turn their pet project into a film, no matter how poorly conceived or uncommercial it may be. When a star gets that big, chances are they’ll find someone to fund their movie, with notable examples being John Travolta’s Battlefield Earth, Chris Pine’s Poolman, or The Weeknd’s recent flop, Hurry Up Tomorrow.
Somewhat in that vein, but not as egregious, is the way that star Vin Diesel, whenever his stardom hits a peak as opposed to a valley, uses the opportunity to try to make his favourite character, Riddick, a household name. One can see why Diesel might hold the character in high regard, with the original Pitch Black arguably the first true Vin Diesel movie. He’d been around for years before, but in Pitch Black, we had all the Diesel trademarks, including the shaved head, the ripped physique, and the growled dialogue.
Co-written and directed by David Twohy, this low-budget sci-fi flick wasn’t originally going to get much of a theatrical release. Still, it was championed by early internet film critics, such as Harry Knowles, at a time when that seemed to matter. The film was a surprise sleeper hit, earning nearly $40 million domestically and paving the way for Diesel to star in The Fast and the Furious. When that movie, and his follow-up, XXX, proved to be hits, Diesel, now minted as a megastar, opted not to make a Fast and Furious sequel. Instead, he convinced Universal Pictures, the Pitch Black right holders (and the Fast and Furious producers), to green light a Pitch Black sequel that would be wildly ambitious compared to the original. The result was a movie that almost killed Diesel’s career, but still didn’t dissuade him from returning to the character repeatedly.
Now, one thing should be acknowledged. The Chronicles of Riddick isn’t precisely a Pitch Black sequel. While it has returning characters and call-backs, it was meant to connect with a wider fanbase, so Universal upped the budget from the original’s $23 million to one that would be well over $100 million. This was meant to be an event film. Why did the studio agree to all this? There are a few reasons. One was that, at the time, Diesel looked like he would be the next megastar in the mould of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Given how well The Fast and the Furious and XXX did, studios thought Diesel was a generation-defining icon, and everyone wanted to be in business with him. It also helped that Fantasy was all the rage at the box office, thanks to the mammoth success of the Lord of the Rings series.
Diesel, a huge fantasy fan, and his returning collaborator, David Twohy, pitched expanding upon Riddick’s origins, giving him a mythical background that could span a whole new series they would call The Chronicles of Riddick. In this new film, we learn that Riddick is the last descendant of the Furyans, a race of warriors killed off by the evil Necromongers, whose leader, Colm Feore’s Lord Marshal, is prophesied to die at the hands of a Furyan. Though, instead of the Alien clone the original was, this was a universe spanning epic, packed to the gills with the kind of prestige actors you’d find in a legit fantasy, including Dame Judi Dench, Thandiwe Newton, and even a Lord of the Rings star – Karl Urban – who would play an antagonist.
Given the bigger budget and genre switch, the decision was made early on to make this a PG-13 movie, and a summer tentpole to boot, with it getting a prime June release date. It seems ridiculous now, but Universal seemed to think audiences would catch Riddick fever, with them even green-lighting a direct-to-DVD animated film called Dark Fury, which would fill in the gaps between this and Pitch Black. Twohy and Diesel also expected this to be a megahit, and the first in a planned Chronicles of Riddick trilogy.
Suffice it to say, none of that happened. Chronicles of Riddick, which – it needs to be said – isn’t actually a bad movie at all, underwhelmed at the box office. It made more than twice what Pitch Black made internationally, but considering the hype and how much it cost, the $57 million domestic gross was considered disastrous. It essentially ended Diesel’s brief reign as a superstar, with his follow-up films, except the Disney comedy, The Pacifier, all being box office flops. It paved the way for his return to the Fast and Furious franchise, and once those films made him a movie star again, he tried to get another installment in the franchise made. Indeed, he succeeded with Riddick, which returned to the low-budget aesthetic of Pitch Black and turned a profit. While its $42 million domestic gross was poor, it almost crossed the $100 million mark overseas, which isn’t bad considering they kept the budget under $40 million. A fourth film in the franchise, Riddick: Furya, was apparently shot in 2024, but curiously, there’s very little information about it online, including who else is in the cast or whether or not it was actually completed. Will the fourth time be the charm and finally make Riddick a thing? Only time will tell – but never count Diesel out -that’s for sure.
