Despite a disappointing worldwide box-office gross of $115 million, 'The Chronicles of Riddick' was generally liked by the viewing public. Vin Diesel and director David Twohy chose to do something different than make a straight forward sequel to their 2000 cult sci-fi/horror film 'Pitch Black'. They expanded upon the universe of Diesel's character Richard B. Riddick, putting him at the center of a story of cosmic proportions. The film had two things going against it. It was forced to obtain a PG-13 rating by the studio, alienating some of the fans of 'Pitch Black' who wanted another hardcore R film and it was released in early summer 2004, a week after the third Harry Potter film.
Like 'Pitch Black', 'The Chronicles of Riddick' did pretty well on home video and has expanded into a successful video game franchise. 'Escape from Butcher Bay', featuring a scenario where players could be Riddick and escape from a slam prison, was so popular that a second game was recently released. At this time 'Assault on Dark Athena' happens to be the most popular game in the country and while promoting its release on Jonathan Ross' show last month, Diesel claimed that Twohy was finishing up the script for the next film and was hoping shooting could begin next year. This sounds a little bit like wishful thinking on Diesel's part, but if you remember, "Chronicles of Riddick' was always envisioned by Diesel and Twohy as a trilogy. If "COR" were "The Lord of the Rings" then "Pitch Black" would be "The Hobbit".
Diesel had a huge hit with 'Fast & Furious' early this month which not only made the biggest April debut on record with a $72 million opening weekend, but has grossed $146 million to date. I was personally wishing for this while the film was in production in the hopes that Universal Studios would see Diesel's box-office potential again and greenlight another Riddick film, but I recently discovered that as early as January of this year, pre-production on the next film was already underway.
Last month both Riddick films were released on blu-ray hi-def with little fanfare, but what's interesting is that on the "Chronicles of Riddick" disc, there is an exclusive commentary featuring Diesel and Twohy that can only be accessed with BD-Live capable players. Recorded in January of this year, Diesel and Twohy give an informative commentary about the film and mention more than a few tidbits about the sequels and the mythology they've been setting up. They don't go into great detail, but if you're familiar with the Riddick mythology you can get a sense of where things are going in the sequels they claim will take us to "Underverse" and "Furya", Riddick's home planet. It's funny listening to the two of them catch themselves from revealing too much because they are obviously excited about the future stories and want to talk about them. The following is an abridged transcript of their thoughts on the Riddick universe and how the sequels will be handled.
David Twohy: I think first we want to point out when we're doing this commentary and why we're doing it. It's January of 2009. Some four years, four plus after the movie was released and we're doing it to lay down on the blu-ray version of the movie.
Vin Diesel: The new technology.
Twohy: Yeah and we were, uh, Universal asked us to do it because we didn't get Vin's commentary before. You couldn't lasso him down, he was off doing other projects.
Vin: It's actually interesting that we're doing the blu-ray commentary now and that we've been asked to do it now. Ah, we are in the process of starting the next one. So we have to kind of take ourselves back five years.
On the character of Shirah, a fellow Furyan like Rididick, played by Kristen Lehman who was cut from the theatrical version but restored in the Director's cut.
Twohy: Well now you know what we're getting into now. Another scene that did not make it into the theatrical cut.
Vin: Yeah, we should explain why these scenes did not make it into the theatrical cut and fess up to our desire to put as much mythology as possible and...
Twohy: Our overreaching ambition?
Vin: What was the original cut at the end of the day if we had all our set-ups?
Twohy: I'm guessing, probably the first cut of the movie that I looked at in the editing room was maybe three hours.
Vin: Yeah at least three hours and we set up everything for the second and third picture.
Twohy: Yeah, well obviously some people felt, some people at the studio felt it was just a little too crammed with with set-ups that didn't necessarily pay off in this movie. And our counter to that was that (laughs) it will pay off eventually.
Vin: Exactly.
Twohy: If not immediately. Eventually. And you know, sometimes studios will roll with that, sometimes they'll say just make sure that it, uh...
Vin: Pertains to this picture. It's an ambitious thing to think of the story as a trilogy and to plan for that, but I think people appreciate it when you give it that much thought.
Twohy: That was the uh, we were speaking of the Shirah character played by Kristen Lehman who as I mentioned in the other commentary was a significant part of the movie, but didn't make it into the theatrical cut so I had to call her up one day and tell her she wasn't in it, which was, it's a very hard thing for a director to do. But the saving grace is that she's here and hopefully she'll be joining us in the future as well.
On Riddick's infamous eyes.
Twohy: You see those eyes in the mirror sometimes?
Vin: You know, I see them and I always...and I see them more frequently when I am about to embrace the role again. And uh, so, I have a feeling that I'll be brushing my teeth later this week and a pair of blue eyes will be staring at me. Cobalt death blue eyes!
Aereon (Judi Dench) and the Elemental Race:
Vin: She plays a very important role in our mythology because it was very important that we hit that role with the best talent that we could find. She was introducing a whole 'nother aspect of the mythology called the Elementals and very enigmatic and we wanted somebody powerful.
Twohy: Once upon a time a wanted to open the movie with a scene where on the Elemental world you'd see them because they are master calculators and they calculate all possible scenarios for the future and where there's sort of a mechanical computer, this big vast machine that filled this huge chamber would come to a grinding halt with the calculation that the universe is now out of balance and its because of this sweeping Necromonger empire and it is their job to simply re-balance the universe. That's why in that first scene she talks about how many names we have for the different types of balances in the world and the universe. And so if the behind-the-scenes machinations for her as an envoy for these Elementals is to kind of chart and oversee the balance of the universe is that the Necromongers were getting too strong and out of control and there needs to be a counter veiling force. And that's why she's interested in Riddick because she sees something in him that maybe he doesn't even see in himself and that he may be the perfect foil to these...
Vin: The antidote.
Twohy: The antidote to the poison that is the Necromonger empire.
Vin: Sure. And you never really know whether Aereon is truly invested in Riddick or solely concerned with the balance and will use all parties.
Twohy: And could be using him, just exploiting him.
Vin: Exactly, so it gives her that...and one of the things she (Judi Dench) enjoyed about playing the character and why she thought the character had that complexity.
Vin: Again, this is, um, you know, one of those areas where we could be guilty of giving away too much or spotlighting too much or foreshadowing too much of what goes on from the third movie. So we...the third sketched movie.
Twohy: We'll just, we'll just erase that if you want. We'll just go back over it. (Both laugh.) You didn't have to put it out there. We'll see.
On shooting on location versus in the studio:
Vin: We shot the majority of 'Pitch Black' in this incredible natural environment in Australia and for 'Chronicles of Riddick' we stayed indoors. I imagine on the next one it will probably be a hybrid of the two.
Twohy: I'm kinda thinking that's the case.
Vin: As we get confident moving forward, on the next one we'll probably see what we can tackle.
Twohy: Hybrid it out or even look back to sort of the 'Pitch Black' approach to doing things.
Vin: The luxury with being able to go from 'Pitch Black', which is a very contained story, to a larger mythology like this is the following stories can either live in a contained version like 'Pitch Black' or play off some of the themes that are introduced in this mythology. Kind of gives you more flexibility in a weird way.
Twohy: We should look at Australia again ya know. Might be good incentives going down there.
Vin: What we've got, uh, yeah Australia could be very interesting. Ya know the art directors will start coming in and start looking at the mandates of all the locations for this one. It's hard not to start talking about the current...
Twohy: Yeah we ought to talk about what's in front of us.
The Mystery of the Blade of Irgun (used to kill the Lord Marshall)
Vin: Now, again, that scene had a lot of discussion about how much we should go into the subtlety of the blade. And how much...
Twohy: The blade of Irgun.
Vin: Yes, should we explain it all now or are we pulling too much from the third...
Twohy: Cause there's a backstory for everything in this movie, even the blade.
When Riddick's mind is scanned by the "Quasi-Deads" in Necropolis:
Vin: You must have had some push back to address the mythology so much there and incorporate scenes that are from a future movie, like Furya. I mean I can't imagine...what was that like with the studio?
Twohy: First of all there's more of it here than in the theatrical release so we get through the full mythology here, but I think they were so obsessed on the Quasi-Deads--"What exactly are they gonna look like?--that they were sort of overlooking the mythology component. And it being a set-up for future movies. They were distracted.
Vin: For those of you that don't know, there's 'Chronicles of Riddick', there's the second part of the trilogy which is 'The Underverse' and there's the third part of the trilogy that is 'Furya'. And in it's conception when we embarked on going into 'Chronicles of Riddick' we mapped out these three stories before ever shooting this film. So we're sometimes guilty of setting up too much, ah, and we always felt like we weren't setting up enough, but as it turns out with the studio focused on just the picture at hand and not our fantastical ideas of the mythology sometimes we were setting up, you know, maybe in their minds we were indulging...
Twohy: It's very difficult for somebody who just wants to see success with one movie to accept the notion that you're setting up something that won't pay off in that one movie, right? Because to them it looks like a loose end.
Vin: That's right! Ha, ha, ha! Done wrong, a loose end.
The Ratings of the Future films:
Vin: We had this discussion and it was very challenging for us to deal with the fact that it was going to be PG (13) and the as we mapped out the trilogy we realized we could do this one in PG (13) and then the story of the Underverse rated R.
Twohy: ...we're pretty convinced that if we go forward from this point, its R-rated.
Vin: Yeah, part of the design of this (COR), this was designed...part of the reason why this is so dense is because it would fit a PG format. If it were R we might not have gone as dense. So when we go to the next picture, the Underverse, it will play nicely for an rated R.
Twohy: Ya think?
Vin: Lot's of death and blood!
The Mark of the Furyans:
Twohy: Wanna talk about it.
Vin: Another example of... I mean you're literally putting an element in there that is for a future movie. Shamelessly. And that was the debate at the studio, the studio didn't want to entertain what was gonna be in the next one, but this all of it is too juicy and we couldn't hold ourselves, ha, ha, back from showing you a little bit about the Furyan power.
Twohy: So we call that effect the "Radius of Fury. The idea is that because of what's happened to their homeworld they carry this vestigial, this racial memory of it and this racial anger of it and that when recognized and combined and directed--or even in this case as you saw, misdirected omnipresent firing off of anger--that it becomes like a defensive weapon as well. So we call it the "Radius of Fury."
Vin: Yeah and it plays out in later stories and again one of the conversations we were having was would it be too early to introduce it.
Twohy: Clearly not. (Laughs).
Vin: Clearly not, but the studio didn't think that. The studio thought at first it's too soon.
Twohy: Too soon. Is it too much, "Are you turning him into Superman?"
Similarities to Conan the Barbarian:
Twohy: Now let's talk Conan. A lot of people said, we just ripped this off from Conan. I don't actually remember it, though it could be deep down inside me somewhere and I could just be playing those things out, but some people are saying it's a rip-off some are saying, no, its a strict homage, its a tribute to it and its what's right for this moment. It's totally right for this moment. But I didn't have that in my head consciously. Did you think about it?
Vin: Never. Never thought of Conan. I'm a fan of Conan, but I never...I like to own up to what I'm influenced by in certain scenes but..
Twohy: Like in certain scenes?
Vin: Yeah, uh, its fun to do, but no I didn't, I wasn't thinking Conan. Different scenario.
Twohy: I mean some people have said "Conan in space", ya know, as a shorthand for what the movie is.
Vin: Now, I can see the similarities between Riddick and in Conan, but in terms of that ending scene, that ending scene wasn't derived directly from any Conan (story).
Twohy: I'd love to watch it again just to see the similarities because we are all influenced by what we grew up on...
Vin: In the subconscious, yeah...
Twohy: Just to see how close it is, because people have told me its the spitting image of (Conan) and I'd like to see it for myself. We'll do a little research, let you know and get back to you on the next commentary.
Twohy: Any concluding thoughts, Vin.
Vin: Ya know its how many years ago?
Twohy: I think we were making it five years ago, making 'Pitch Black' ten years ago.
Vin: Ah, we were making Pitch Black ten years ago, we did this about five years ago. It's about that time.
Twohy: Are you seeing the eyes?
Vin: I've seen the eyes, I have a feeling I'm going to go home and start to look at the mirror in a different way. Good stuff, thank you all for joining us and forgive us if we got lost at moments, reconnecting.
