Time to bring the Riddick thread back to life 😀 Here is an article I found and typed up from the latest edition of Empire magazine, there is a pic but no scanner sorry. Its a good sign that its started to get reported upon more.
"We're using more space here than Universal Pictures has in Los Angeles in total," boasted a grinning publicist when Coming Soon toured the cavernous Vancouver sets of Chronicles of Riddick late last year. "We are the biggest consumer currently for BC Hydro."(The water-powered leccy company which provides juice for most local Canucks.) Forget the small-scale antics of Pitch Black, the movie that made Vin Diesel the next big thing. For the sequel rivers have apparently had to flow faster to service writer-director David Twohy and Diesel's vision of the next chapter in what they're hoping will be an epic trilogy.
"It was a dream to do something this magical, and on this scale," says Diesel, whose fugitive, see-in-the-dark anti-hero, Richard B, Riddick, finds himself caught in the middle of two opposing forces on an intergalactic crusade with Colm Feore's dastardly Lord Marshal and his Necromongers on one side, and Judi Dench's ethereal Aeron, Ambassador of the Elementals on the other. "Despite the scale, I'm still fascinated with the character, this overlooked, forgotten, misunderstood guy," adds Diesel, effectively confirming that Riddick's more anti-social characteristics will be jettisoned. "What this movie does is expand on the character in Pitch Black and find a mythology for him."
Which is indicative of Twohy and Diesel's ambition. "I want this to be the kind of movie that audiences can lose themselves in." growls Diesel. "Post-World War II we lost ourselves in Tolkien; in the 70's we lost ourselves in Star Wars. We haven't had any of that in a long, long time. What we we're doing is fusing sci-fi with mythology in a way that's never been seen befor."
They also give an estimated ETA of the movie as August.