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Originally Posted by "Moriarty"
Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
Nice work, guys. David Twohy’s got the groovy underwater ghost story BELOW coming out this weekend on a couple of hundred screens. He’s still barely being supported by Dimension, despite their limp TV campaign.
No matter how anemic the reaction to this film, though, and no matter how undeserved a death Miramax has condemned it to, Twohy’s already looking ahead, and I think he’s gearing up to do something that we should all pay close attention to. If he finally delivers on the promise of his genre work so far and makes something epic and original, we could be in for something really special.
And any news right now is good news, I say:

Hey all:

If interested, our recent interview with director David Twohy provided some insight into the production of the PITCH BLACK sequel, THE RIDDICK CHRONICLES:

CLICK HERE TO READ THE WHOLE STORY!!

Here are the basic passages on that:
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How far along are you with the RIDDICK CHRONICLES?

We’re in pre-production. The script is finished and I’ve got my production designer on it. Right now we’re calling the series the CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK. We’re referring to them now as “C-1,” “C-2” and “C-3.” I’m plotting all three films as we pre-produce this first film. The reason why it’s “Chronicles” and not “Pitch Black 2” is because that would give a false impression of this next film, because not only are we changing genres – the first one was a horror film and this one will be action/adventure/sci-fi – but we’re also increasing the scope in such a way that isn’t true to the original film as well.


Are you planning to shoot “C-2” and “C-3” simultaneously?

If the first one justifies any follow-ups at all, then yeah, we’re thinking of doing 2 and 3 together.


Can you give us a peek at what THE CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK will be about?

All I can say is that it takes that Riddick character and follows him through multiple worlds as he meets multiple adversaries. There’s a lot of theology in it. Even though I’m not a religious guy, I am very interested in religion and why people turn to it. In BELOW I’m interested in why people turn to supernatural explanations when there are more plausible ones. I’m not a great believer in the supernatural either, but I find it fascinating when people turn to it.


You shot PITCH BLACK in Australia. Are you planning to shoot CHRONICLES there, too?

No. We would have gone back, but stage space was a little tight there. So we booked Vancouver and sucked up all of their available stage space, only to find out that Darren’s new film, THE FOUNTAIN, went down. He had a lot of stage space in Australia reserved and suddenly in the last two weeks all of that stage space has become available again. I would have loved to go to Australia, but now we’re booked into Vancouver, so I don’t think there’s any chance of switching back at this point.


Have you done any casting yet, other than Vin Diesel?

No.
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Laters!

Berge Garabedian aka JoBlo
Awesome. Thanks for the heads-up, man.

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Anti-heroes don't come much more anti- than Richard B. Riddick. At times it seems that virtually everyone he has ever met has tried to kill him — and the feeling's mutual — so it’s lucky for him that he can see in the dark. He saw off a planetful of evil flying beasties in the fabulous Pitch Black, and he's back for more in The Chronicles of Riddick, which opens on August 27.

But if the makers have their way, even that won't be the end for Riddick. No, Vin Diesel and David Twohy have their eyes on a trilogy of Riddick pictures, developing the mythology around the character. We have the lowdown below and it's largely spoiler free, but if you really don't want to know anything at all about the premise of The Chronicles Of Riddick, you might want to wait a couple of weeks to read this.

"From the very, very beginning, when everyone thought it was crazy, I was thinking of The Chronicles Of Riddick as a trilogy," said Diesel. "That would start with the movie you saw, and Pitch Black would act as a prequel that introduced you to the character. So in simple terms, in Chronicles 2 we venture to the Underverse. We knew we could get away with a PG-13 on the first one, but once you go to the Underverse it's rated R, because it's a place where war is the norm and there is constant, constant battling. Then on Chronicles 3 we will see Riddick return to Furia, to deal with the homeland."

Underverse? What is this Underverse? It is mentioned in the new film, but barely explained. So can writer /director David Twohy tell us more?

"We did a lot of talking in this film about the Underverse, and one way of talking about it is the promised land — that this leader of this new Necromonger faith has found. If you want to look at it more scientifically, scientists have this concept of multiverses — multiple universes, y'know. The idea is that this 'verse they talk about, this Underverse, is a parallel universe, and the door to that, the portal to that place, has been found by the Lord Marshal. And he is the one guy who has stepped across, and gazed upon its beauty and its power, and taken a little bit of it back with him. So there's much to be plundered there."

No sequel has been greenlit so far, but these two seem to have enough enthusiasm to make it all by themselves. Unfortunately, it's more likely to happen with $100 million and an expert CGI and design team. So if there's anyone out there with the GDP of a small country to spare, do contact Mr. Diesel or Mr. Twohy and get things moving.

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Originally Posted by "Scott Collura"
Friday, 12 November 2004

A lot of fans were disappointed last summer when Vin Diesel’s The Chronicles of Riddick didn’t fare very well at the box office. The sequel to the cult sci-fi hit Pitch Black, Riddick was to be the first in a proposed trilogy of films further detailing the adventures of Diesel’s futuristic mercenary antihero, Richard B. Riddick.

With the film debuting on DVD next week, David Twohy, who wrote and directed Chronicles, took the time to talk to Now Playing Magazine about whether or not we'll ever see the remaining two films in the planned Riddick trilogy.

“[Sequels are] still a possibility, but many eyes are watching this DVD release very closely,” Twohy says, in reference to Universal’s number crunchers. “Remember that we were saying all along that we knew where the story goes from this point forward, but we hopefully didn’t have so much hubris to say that we were definitely making a trilogy out of this. What we were saying was, ‘We know what the macro arc is,’ and if we were fortunate enough to be successful in this one we knew where we would pick up in the next one. We had it in our minds and there are certain setups in The Chronicles of Riddick for future films, including the Shirah character who now appears in the [director’s cut DVD], a character who did not make it into the theatrical version at all.”

The filmmaker explains that Shirah (played by Kristin Lehman) was dropped from the theatrical film very late in the process, but that she will figure prominently in any sequels.

“It was decided that character just brought a little more confusion than enlightenment to the theatrical cut and so we decided to pull her scenes out,” he continues. “Basically, she belonged to the same race as Riddick and she helped shed light on his past. Why was he strangled at birth? Why did somebody try to murder him at birth? All that got put back into this DVD, so it’s a more layered experience.”

The mythology of the Riddick universe will also be further fleshed out, should sequels be commissioned. And whether that happens or not would seem to depend entirely on how well the DVD sells in the next few weeks.

“We would talk a lot about the Underverse – this being the sort of collision of Heaven and Hell for the Necromonger empire – and what that all is, and we’d venture across it,” Twohy says. “We know the Lord Marshal character gained some powers there by stepping in, having one foot in this land of the Necromonger dead. And he came back with this power of soul separation. So it’s a very interesting place, and thought to be a physical place, and if we had the opportunity to continue the story we would surely like to go there.”

For more in-depth coverage on The Chronicles of Riddick sequels, subscribe to Now Playing Magazine today!

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In an interview with Now Playing magazine to promote the upcoming Unrated Director's Cut DVD release of this past summer's "The Chronicles of Riddick", helmer David Twohy spoke about the possibilities of doing the further two films in the proposed trilogy featuring the Vin Diesel-played anti-hero.

"[Sequels are] still a possibility, but many eyes are watching this DVD release very closely. Remember that we were saying all along that we knew where the story goes from this point forward, but we hopefully didn’t have so much hubris to say that we were definitely making a trilogy out of this. What we were saying was, ‘We know what the macro arc is,’ and if we were fortunate enough to be successful in this one we knew where we would pick up in the next one.

We had it in our minds and there are certain setups in The Chronicles of Riddick for future films, including the Shirah character who now appears in the [director’s cut DVD], a character who did not make it into the theatrical version at all. We would talk a lot about the Underverse – this being the sort of collision of Heaven and Hell for the Necromonger empire – and what that all is, and we’d venture across it...if we had the opportunity to continue the story we would surely like to go there"

For the full interview, click here.

Thanks to 'Eric'.

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Originally Posted by "Stephanie Sanchez"

Diesel's Riddick is a badass and is coming back to the big screen shortly in the next Riddick film with a rumored release date of 2010.
IESB has some inside information about the film to share.

Universal Pictures, the studio behind the franchise, is gung-ho about a Riddick sequel due to the huge tracking of Diesel's FAST & FURIOUS due out April 3 co-starring Paul Walker.

IESB is hearing the new Riddick film will be more down and dirty with less "fantasy epic stuff" to deal with. A bounty hunter/space pirate type of story line is expected.

The film will have a capped budget of around $35 million.