The fourth installment in the long-running, cult-classic Riddick series is finally going into production, according to series star Vin Diesel. The fourth film, which is expected to reteam Diesel with director David Twohy, has been in development for a while, with its biggest announcement being the completion of a screenplay in 2019. In May 2020, Diesel told another interviewer that the script was “coming next week,” suggesting that it was being reworked and that the second version was almost complete. Now, though, Diesel suggests that Riddick: Furya is ready to shoot, once Diesel and Twohy both have holes in their schedule.
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“David Twohy, he wrote a great script,” Diesel told GamesRadar. “It’s just a matter of timing when we get that opportunity to shoot that. But I believe we’re shooting that in Australia. And it would be the fourth chapter in that series, which would be awesome.”
That “fourth chapter” may or may not be literal. An early draft of Riddick: Furya was understood to be an origin story for the character, who has appeared in three films so far, as well as an animated tie-in and a video game.
“We did have great success with Escape From Butcher Bay,” Diesel added in the GamesRadar interview. “It feels like an eternity ago now. But, I imagine that we would take advantage of the gaming space and add an extra chapter, but definitely, the [movie’s] script is already written. So it’s safe to say that we are moving towards filming the fourth chapter of Riddick.”
First introduced in Pitch Black, Riddick was one of Diesel’s earliest iconic roles. The world was later explored in Chronicles of Riddick, and then in Riddick, and since that movie released in 2013, there have been consistent rumors that Universal was developing a fourth installment.
Furya, you might remember, is the name of Riddick’s homeworld, which he was working to save in Riddick. You can check out that film’s official synopsis here: “Betrayed by his own kind and left for dead on a desolate planet, Riddick fights for survival against alien predators and becomes more powerful and dangerous than ever before. Soon bounty hunters from throughout the galaxy descend on Riddick only to find themselves pawns in his greater scheme for revenge. With his enemies right where he wants them, Riddick unleashes a vicious attack of vengeance before returning to Furya to save it from destruction.”
The tagline, as read by Diesel’s son in the 2019 social media post, is apparently “everyone wants to be a beast, until it’s time to do what real beasts do.”
There is no official release date for Riddick 4: Furya yet.
