Before he was racing cars as Dominic Toretto in the Fast & Furious world, working for the National Security Agency as Xander Cage in xXx and voicing Groot in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Vin Diesel debuted the antihero known as Richard B. Riddick in 2000’s Pitch Black. While that was a low-budget sci-fi offering, Riddick’s adventures delved into blockbuster territory in 2004 with The Chronicles of Riddick, and that was followed by 2013’s Riddick. Now after nearly a decade of development, it’s been announced that Diesel is officially returning for Riddick 4, a movie he once teased while shirtless. And with this news comes the next installment’s first story details.
Vin Diesel will reunite with director/writer David Twohy, who helmed and penned all three previous Riddick-centric movies (working on Pitch Black’s script with Ken and Jim Wheats), for Riddick 4, which is titled Riddick: Furya. Per Deadline, the upcoming movie sees Riddick returning to his homeworld, which he barely remembers and worries has been left in ruins by the Necromongers. Upon arriving on the planet, Riddick discovers other Furyans who are “fighting for their existence against a new enemy,” and some of these individuals are more similar to our title hero than he imagined.
In addition to reprising Riddick, Vin Diesel will produce Riddick: Furya through his One race Films production company with Samantha Vincent. Next week, Rocket Science and CAA Media Finance will launch worldwide sales for the next Riddick movie at the European Film Festival. David Twohy, whose other credits include directing Timescape and writing The Fugitive and Waterworld, shared this statement on Riddick: Furya moving forward:
Our legion fans have demanded it for years, and now we’re finally ready to honor their call to action with Riddick: Furya. My collaboration with Vin and One Race has spanned 20 fruitful years, as together we’ve created three movies, two video games, an anime production, and motion comics for the internet. This new big-screen event will see a return to Riddick’s homeworld, where we finally get to explore Riddick’s genesis.
Riddick 4 has been in the cards since January 2014, just four months after Riddick’s release, when Vin Diesel shared that Universal Pictures was interested in making another installment. By 2016, Diesel shared that the next movie was titled The Chronicles of Riddick: Furya, which was shortened to Riddick: Furya by July 2019. Diesel was still teasing another Riddick sequel to fans in December 2021, and over a year later, evidently the project is finally taking the next step to becoming a reality.
This Riddick 4 news comes as two professional chapters of Vin Diesel’s life are gearing up to conclude. This May’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 will be the last time we see this team of characters together in the MCU, and Fast X, which comes out the same month, will be the penultimate entry in the main Fast & Furious film series, with Fast 11 expected to drop sometime in 2024. Diesel will also be heard later this year in Ark: The Animated Series, and while he’s been attached to do xXx 4 since 2018, it’s unclear where things currently stand on that action movie.
As soon as any other big updates on Riddick: Furya come in, we’ll pass them along. Until then, look over the 2023 new movie releases to figure out what you’ll be watching in theaters or streaming later this year.