Remember that perpetual silence that clouded action sequel xXx: The Return of Xander Cage? One resounding “I live for this shit!” battle cry from Vin Diesel later and the floodgates have now opened for D.J. Caruso’s threequel, with the casting news arriving thick and fast.
And so, what began with the relatively humble addition of Indian star Deepika Padukone, Furious 7 cohort Tony Jaa and Irish UFC champ Conor McGregor has now led to a burgeoning ensemble that includes action veteran Jet Li, Russian actor Andrey Ivchenko and, more recently, the addition of Academy Award-nominee Toni Collette (The Sixth Sense, Little Miss Sunshine).
The Hollywood Reporter has the scoop, revealing that Collette has been brought aboard for the role of a high-ranking bureaucrat pulling the strings behind the scenes for one of the leading secret intelligence agencies. Whether that places Collette’s newcomer as a hero or adversary to Diesel’s cocksure Xander Cage remains to be seen, though THR does note that the long-in-development 2017 sequel is set to revolve around “two teams of badasses that go head-to-head.” That certainly lends perspective to Jet Li’s involvement in The Return of Xander Cage.
Proving that he’s very much still alive and kicking after being killed off screen in middling sequel State of the Union, there’s no telling what Diesel and D.J. Caruso are cooking up for xXx: The Return of Xander Cage. Like a dormant volcano ready to unleash vast swathes of pent-up energy, the actor’s title anti-hero will no doubt be ready for nine kinds of crazy, and we’ll begin to see fleeting signs of that final product when filming begins next month across Toronto and the Philippines.