Apparently, Vin Diesel will not stop until everything he touches becomes a franchise. His career might be littered with several major box office bombs like Babylon A.D. and Bloodshot, but you have to at least admire the actor’s persistence for sticking with both the Fast and Furious and Riddick series for two decades.
Diesel’s third major franchise, though, not including his voice-only role as the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Groot, has a patchy track record to say the least. xXx is a time capsule of what people were into at the turn of the millennium, and the somewhat zeitgeisty flick did decent business after raking in $277 million at the box office, reinforcing the leading man’s credentials as Hollywood’s latest action hero.
Similar to how he opted out of 2 Fast 2 Furious, the noted vest enthusiast unfortunately didn’t return for sequel State of the Union, with Ice Cube stepping in to headline a bomb that barely cracked $70 million globally and once again confirmed that Mr. Cube is most definitely ill-suited for taking top billing in action-packed blockbusters.
Fifteen years after he’d last played the role, though, Diesel came back for Return of Xander Cage, which was the highest-grossing installment yet and also the most enjoyable after embracing how ludicrous the entire concept was and delivering a knowing and self-effacing genre flick that never took itself too seriously.
A fourth xXx was announced shortly after, but insider Daniel Richtman is now claiming that it will act as the launchpad for an entirely new trilogy, continuing Vin Diesel’s longtime love affair with sequels. Taking to Patreon to talk about the next installment, here’s what he shared:
“They now plan to make it a new trilogy.”
We’ll have to wait and see how xXx 4 turns out before we discover if any more follow-ups will indeed be on the way, but knowing how Diesel operates, he’ll certainly try his best to make it happen.