I’m one of the few out there who really enjoyed David Twohy’s 2004 film Chronicles of Riddick: a bonkers space opera that saw Vin Diesel reprise his role as the antihero Richard B. Riddick as he escapes from bounty hunters and saves the known universe from a group of religious fanatics called the Necromongers.
The Riddick franchise has long been a passion project for Diesel, who told GamesRadar that Furya, the long-in-the-works fourth installment of the series has been written and that it could soon begin production in Australia if the timing works out.
The Riddick franchise got its start way back in 2000 with the space horror film Pitch Black, which followed the passengers of a crashed spaceship on an inhospitable desert planet and have to content not only with an escaped serial killer—Riddick—but the planet’s ravenous wildlife. The film was a bit of a cult hit, and spawned a sequel in the form of The Chronicles of Riddick, which kept some of the first film’s horror elements, but introduced a bit more straight-forward space opera flair. Accompanying the film was Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury, a short anime film, along with a video game, Escape from Butcher Bay. (There’s been a couple of other video games along the way as well.)
Twohy and Diesel reunited 2013 for a third, low-budget installment of the series, (simply called Riddick), which saw its titular character betrayed and left to die on another inhospitable planet, where he’s hunted by alien creatures and mercenaries. The film garnered so-so reviews, but Diesel (who owns the rights to the franchise—his payment for appearing in Fast & Furious: Tokyo Drift) has been saying for years that he wanted to continue the series with a fourth installment, Furya.
Word on that fourth installment has been scarce in the years since, and I was amused to see that Diesel was still repping the franchise (in the form of a Furyan shirt) as he’s been doing PR work for his latest film, Fast & Furious 9:
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On that press tour, GamesRadar went out and asked him what the status was. Diesel noted that “it’s safe to say that we are moving towards filming the fourth chapter of Riddick,” and that Twohy “wrote a great script” for the film. They’re apparently eyeing a shoot in Australia, and noted that it’s a “matter of timing when we get that opportunity to shoot that.”
As to what a fourth installment of the film might cover? The title of the project seems like a good indication that Twohy and Diesel will explore the Furyans a bit more. They were a nearly-extinct race of humans with some special abilities, of which Riddick is a member. The Furyans were largely wiped out by the Necromongers because of a prophecy that one of their leaders would be overthrown by a member of the race, which turned out to be Riddick.
That’s if the film is made: Twohy is working on a film called Ice Moon Rising (Set to come out in 2022), and Diesel is coming off of F9, was in Avatar 2, is voicing a character in an animated series called ARK, is reprising his role as Groot in Guardians of the Galaxy 3 (and a GotG Holiday Special), a movie called Muscle, and Fast & Furious 10. It’s safe to say that he’s pretty busy, and hopefully, he’ll be able to make some time to return to the pulpy, horror-tinged world of Riddick for another adventure.
