Corona | Coming Attractions

I like the way that Vin Diesel uses social media. He's picked one network, specifically Facebook, and he's able to deliver brief updates about his projects using it. Diesel has been keeping his 29 million Facebook followers appraised on the development of Riddick, (a.k.a. The Chronicles of Riddick: Dead Man Standing), the third film in his sci-fi/action series, over the course of the past several months. Today he's released the first photo of him in costume from Riddick and his Facebook followers have given it the thumbs up.

"Grateful for the opportunity to make magic," the actor wrote on his wall. Riddick is just commencing principal photography in Montreal. The only other cast members announced have been Jordi Molla and Battlestar Galactica's Katee Sackhoff, both of whom are playing mercenaries/bounty hunters who track the ex-con/leader of the Necromongers to a violent alien world where they plan to capture him and collect the sizeable bounty on his head.

Riddick is being directed by David Twohy, the same guy that helmed the first movie, Pitch Black, as well as the expensive second film, The Chronicles of Riddick. Whereas Pitch Black was a low budget movie that was filmed mostly in the outback of Australia, Chronicles was a $180 million dollar beast that expanded the scope of Riddick's universe and set him up as a mythical anti-hero with a greater destiny. After witnessing the popularity of Pitch Black and the Riddick character, Twohy and Diesel built a three-picture story arc of which Chronicles was supposed to be the first in the proposed trilogy. However, luke warm box office results and mixed reviews seemed to have altered their plans. The new Riddick movie seems to be their attempt to bring the franchise back to its Pitch Black roots, jettisoning the bloat in favor of a stripped down, leaner action movie.

You can go back and read my review of Twohy's Dead Man Standing screenplay here. I gave it a positive review and I think that the direction the Riddick movie is taking works in the best business interest of everyone (though I will miss not seeing the depiction of the Underverse talked about in Chronicles.)

A release date for Riddick hasn't been revealed yet but as a guessing man I'd say look for something in the summer of 2013.