I love Pitch Black. It was an original and fun 2000 Sci-Fi movie that thrilled the viewers. It had a great but simple story - a group of survivors from a spaceship that crashed on a forbidden planet with 3 suns try to survive it's horrific, deadly night creatures. It also gave us a fantastic character named Richard P. Riddick, played by Vin Diesel, who was a convict and not a do-gooder or a framed ex-policeman or any other standard Sci-Fi hero you might get. In fact, Riddick was the quintessential anti-hero.
The movie was filmed in Australia, with mostly an Australian and American cast, at the estimated cost of $23 million and it made roughly $53 million world wide. It also became somewhat of a cult Sci-Fi movie.
Then in 2004 followed the sequel titled The Chronicles of Riddick. It was bigger in scope and story - the budget of the movie was about $110 million (though some estimate it to be more at $150 million) and it brought in about $115 million worldwide. Where Pitch Black was more intimist, Riddick was a huge spectacle. The movie somewhat ended on a cliff hanger, with Riddick becoming ruler of the Necromongers and sitting on the Lord Marshal's Throne. So everyone was expecting a sequel no? It was planned as a trilogy right? We had to see what would happen to Riddick next! Alas, the poor return at the box office somewhat put the planned trilogy on ice.
Not long ago, the planned sequel to Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick was announced. Today, we have a title Chronicles of Riddick: Dead Man Stalking, and one of its very first script reviews.
All in all, it appears all is well for the planned sequel. The script is supposedly a lean 100 pages, written again by director/screenwriter David Twohy, and it will have a budget of around $60 million. Less than Riddick but more than Pitch Black.
The Chronicles of Riddick: Dead Man Stalking has the ingredients to get this franchise's engine retooled. The Riddick seen in Dead Man Stalking has trimmed off the fat of Chronicles and bulked himself up better than even his Pitch Black days. Shortly after Riddick finds his world fucked once again Twohy has the character say a line which encapsulates what went wrong with Riddick these past two movies and to put him in his current situation: he got civilized. He began to care too much about the people whose lives crossed his path. Well, what's caring too much to Riddick is different than you and me, but the point is made clear to the anti-hero: he's got to return back to being a predator, the baddest asshole in the universe, if he's to survive the trials in Dead Man Stalking -- and Hollywood. Back to basics. Back to killing.
The Chronicles of Riddick are not forgotten. The viewers will apparently get a flashback of what happened to Riddick for him to end up where he is now. The reviewer mentions that Vaako appears in the script (during the flashback sequence and I wonder if we'll get Karl Urban back for that bit), but that there will be no references to the Underverse, presumably, he argues, because Twohy has a more limited budget to play with.
We get hunter Riddick back, and this time the movie is an R-Rated affair; gone are the PG-13 restrictions of Riddick, and thank God for that. There will be swearing and filthy language, there will be action. It's a return to form to Pitch Black but even more brutal.
The reviewer seems rather pleased with what he's read, and he seems to expect more Riddick stories to follow from Twohy and Diesel. What I read about his review has left me rather hopeful that it will be a good movie - he even compared Dead Man Stalking to The Road Warrior as opposed to Mad Max for Pitch Black.
You can go read the full review for yourself here [Corona Coming Attractions]
So, is anyone else excited about Dead Man Stalking? Anyone looking forward to more Riddick action? Let me know!
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