‘Riddick’ Director Talks About His Original Vision

Vin Diesel fans know that a new Riddick movie is on its way, but what you might not know is that the upcoming film isn’t exactly keeping with the original vision for a third film.

Let’s rewind. Pitch Black, the first Riddick film, came out in 2000 and was successful enough that the studio decided to put some money behind a sequel which would explore the Diesel character’s universe on a more epic scale. That film, The Chronicles of Riddick, was released in 2004, but it didn’t do as well as the studios had hoped.

Nerd Bastards reports that the upcoming Riddick film arrives thanks to director David Twohy and Vin Diesel’s belief in the concept. They combined their resources to buy the franchise from Universal and began to produce a smaller-scale Riddick film, which is coming out later this year.

But what if The Chronicles of Riddick had been a success, and the Twohy/Diesel team could have kept their enormous budget? The third Riddick film would have been a lot different than what we’re getting.

Twohy told told Comic Book Movie the following about what might have been:

“Had Universal said to us, ‘Let’s roll over, let’s pick it up right at the end of the last movie’ and funded it, we would have ventured into the Necromonger underverse and we would have had a big The Lord of the Rings-style movie on our hands. But that didn’t happen, so cleverly Vin and I got the rights back and produced it ourselves on a smaller scale. That said, it still looks like a big movie. I think the audience will see the tip of the hat to Pitch Black, but they won’t feel claustrophobic.”

Riddick comes out on September 6. Are you looking forward to it, or would have liked to see the original concept?