While Hollywood megastar Vin Diesel is perhaps best known for his time behind the wheel of the long-running Fast and the Furious franchise or lending his voice to Guardians of the Galaxy’s favourite talking tree, news recently broke that he will soon be returning to another of his famous characters.
It has been over 23 years since Diesel first introduced audiences to the Furyan antihero Riddick in 2000’s low-budget sci-fi flick Pitch Black, and now a fourth film in the series is set to see him return to the stars as the gruff space-faring outlaw once more.
Katee Sackhoff as Dahl
Created by screenwriting duo Ken and Jim Wheat, and later continued by director David Twohy, Diesel’s Riddick would return alongside upcoming April Supa-Stars Karl Urban for 2004’s The Chronicles of Riddick and again for 2013’s more simply titled Riddick. This last sequel would also see him cross paths with yet another of our highly anticipated Gold Coast and Melbourne guests, The Mandalorian’s Katee Sackhoff, who played Dahl, a tough-as-nails mercenary and crack sharpshooter.
With both Urban and Sackhoff shortly bound for Australian shores, perhaps now would be a good time to take a look at what we know about Diesel’s imminent return for his fourth outing as Richard B. Riddick.
The Long Road To Riddick 4
Plans for a fourth Riddick film were teased as far back as 2014, when Universal Studios were buoyed by the strong performance of the saga’s third outing on home video. Two years later, Diesel would reveal that the fourth film would be titled Furya, referencing the mysterious homeworld of his character. While audiences are still yet to see the planet for themselves, it has previously been described as a harsh world where only the strongest could survive.
After those first few initial announcements, viewers heard little else until in 2019 Diesel took to Instagram for his 52nd birthday and excitedly shared news that an initial draft for the script for Riddick 4 had been completed.
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Following this particular tease, Diesel’s plate seemed largely consumed by his work on the 9th and 10th instalments of the Fast and the Furious franchise, and little else was heard. That was, however, until May last year when the actor began sharing pre-production sketches that revealed the project was still very much in the pipeline. Over the next few months, Diesel would continue dropping even more storyboard and concept art from the new film.
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Then finally, in February this year, it was officially announced that Riddick: Furya would be moving forward with the original director David Twohy behind the camera. In addition to starring, Diesel would also be producing the film under the same banner as Fast X. Regarding the announcement, Twohy had the following to say:
Our legion of fans have demanded it for years, and now we’re finally ready to honor their call-to-action with ‘Riddick: Furya’. My collaboration with Vin and One Race has spanned 20 fruitful years, as together we’ve created three movies, two video games, an anime production, and motion comics for the internet. This new big-screen event will see a return to Riddick’s homeworld, where we finally get to explore Riddick’s genesis.
At the moment there is still no clear indication as to when filming will commence.
What Will Happen in Furya?
Karl Urban as Commander Vaako
Riddick’s return to his former homeworld has long been teased as an important journey for his character. In 2013’s Riddick, Diesel’s character struck a deal with Karl Urban’s Commander Vaako which involved him being told the location of the planet and the provision of a ship to take him there.
In exchange, Riddick would allow Vaako to take his place as the next Lord Marshal of the Necromonger fleet. However, Riddick was eventually betrayed by Vaako’s aide, Krone, and left on another desolate planet after a failed assassination attempt.
While Diesel’s character would never get a chance to set foot on Furya in that film, that finally looks set to change. Once thought to be destroyed by the Necromongers, Riddick’s fourth outing is set to have him discover some remnant of the Furyan civilisation clinging on to life on their desolate planet. Not everything will go smoothly, however, and Riddick will find his fellow Furyans engaged in a bloody fight for their own survival against a new enemy.
Currently, Diesel is the only cast member confirmed to be appearing in the new sequel, so it is not yet known whether Urban’s Vaako or Sackhoff’s Dahl are likely to make an appearance. In the meantime, however, fans will have a chance to meet the two face-to-face at at Supanova Gold Coast (15-16 April) and Melbourne (22-23 April), with tickets now available through Moshtix!
