Riddick headed to NZ?

The third “Riddick” movie has been on-and-off more times than Pink and Carey Hart, but according to its star, the needle’s now weighing heavily into the green zone.

Star Vin Diesel – whose been gung-ho to do a second sequel to “Pitch Black” ever since writer/director David Twohy let him in on his plans for an epic ‘trilogy’ way back when – let slip on his Facebook page that scouting has already begun in New Zealand for “Pitch Black 2 : Pitch Blacker” (or whatever the heck it’s called).

Diesel has also posted some pictures from some of the locations the scouting troops have visited for the film, and noted that WETA digital (Peter Jackson’s crowd) may be partnering up with them to do the effects.

Twohy, who has been trying to raise the financing for the film for a while now, told Shock Til You Drop in August that he’s actually got ‘two’ ideas for the next insalment.

“Vin and I have decided on one approach of those two, and there’s some interest at the studio level but it would be as a PG-13 film, and we don’t want to do that anymore. That’s one of the concessions we thought we made with ‘Riddick’ that we shouldn’t have made. We also spent too much money and we were too ambitions, so yes, if we do go back to a third one, it will be focused again, hopefully again the same way that ‘Pitch Black’ was, and we’ll spend less money doing it. We’re just trying to figure out how much less we can do it for, because I don’t think Vin is going to work for scale again.”

Twohy said in the same interview that this new sequel would be made for a lot less than “Chronicles of Riddick” and play a lot more like “Pitch Black”. Thank ‘bloody’ god!

As for whether Universal will be involved? Doubtful. Twohy mentioned on his official site a couple of years back that if and when the second sequel happens, it’ll be an independent movie.

“The DVD numbers [on Chronicles of Riddick] were really good – we know that, and some potential financiers know that. But if another movie surfaces, it probably won’t be a Universal movie and probably will be an independent movie. Which means we’ll have to make it for substantially less than the last installment. But that’s okay. PITCH BLACK was $22 million all in. Maybe it’s time to go back to our roots – as we go on to The UnderVerse.”

If “Riddick 3” comes off, that’ll be three sequels on Diesel’s to-do list : he’s also attached to “XXX 3 : The Return of Xander Cage” and “Fast and the Furious 5”. Unfortunately, no plans yet for a “Pacifier 2”.