Hey Folks, Harry here... After I got the news from Variety that David Twohy had landed the dream gig of creating his own trilogy involving the Riddick character from PITCH BLACK, I wrote to congratulate him and to see what juicy morsels I could come up with. Well, today I heard back... and at the same time I saw this groovy promotional item that Bloody-Disgusting.Com came up with. Here it is...
First of all, it seems that Twohy and Universal are aiming to start shooting as early as October of this year, with the idea for the first CHRONICLE OF RIDDICK to hit theaters that following October of 2003! They are aiming to push the limits of PG-13 or "just fuck it and go for an 'R.' The tone and subject matter certainly lends itself to the latter." After telling me this, David wrote a rather tantilizing letter that he has told me to share with all y'all, and if this just doesn't get your jones going, then I feel sorry for you. The idea of an evil twin STAR WARS that basically postulates... what if Luke Skywalker was a Vin Diesel character named Riddick, and he was as good a guy as you'd run across... and he's a cold blooded murderer... Well, this sounds a bit like what Leone would do with special effects and a badass like Diesel. Twohy is finally getting his A-film shot, and folks... I'm ready to hold on for the ride, Vin's gonna be a total badass and I'm pulling for this film to kick major ass!
Harry,
So I wrote a treatment for a sequel two years ago, and it was deemed too big, too rich of a follow-up. Well, that was then -- and Vin is now. We can think “too big.” So we’re using that treatment as a matrix, layering in new characters and new dimensions as we create a whole multi-verse that will carry us through two, possibly three more films. It’s a multi-verse full of competing agendas and countervailing strengths. Riddick is but one of those strengths, and he’ll tap into primal powers he didn’t know he had, evolving into something more powerful. Something even darker.
To bring it into focus for the studio, I pitched a franchise that would be “the evil twin of ‘Star Wars’.” And they got it immediately. Instead of cold technology on parade, “Chronicles” will be a hot-blooded affair that marches to the tune of corruption, defiance, chaos. It won’t be so much a horror film (as some thought “Pitch Black” to be) as a dark action-adventure movie with our own brand of epic mythology.
Oh, did I mention "dark"?
One of the things we saw, early on, was a parallel to the “Terminator” series: The audience actually liked the antagonist by the end of the first movie. Knowing this, Cameron smartly changed the dynamic for the sequel, pitting Arnold against the T-1000, overmatching him so that the audience could root for him. Well, point taken: We will overmatch Riddick in all our follow-up movies. He has to have Big Foes, and we’ve got them. Plenty of ‘em.
Again, thanks to “Ain’t It Cool News.” We remember how “Pitch Black” had virtually zero awareness a month before its release – and then along came your review. That kick-started a lot of good web-buzz for us. Little did we dream it would lead to this.
David Twohy
