According to Vin Diesel's Facebook page, the Riddick crew is headed to New Zealand to look for locations. Which is totally different than any Riddick world we've seen thus far.

I wonder if New Zealand will be the hostile planet Riddick will be stuck on, "surrounded by hostile beasts." I hope so, because it's gorgeous. And while I'm happy to have Riddick back, I'm hoping that they attempt to explain the Necromonger world that was introduced in the Chronicles of Riddick — but so far the new Riddick sounds more space action and less space opera. Still, always good to have the Furyan back.

In an interview with Shock Til You Drop Twohy explained what we have to look forward to, besides more glorious, graphic bloodshed.

"Vin and I have decided on one approach of those two, and there's some interest at the studio level but it would be as a PG-13 film, and we don't want to do that anymore. That's one of the concessions we thought we made with 'Riddick' that we shouldn't have made....The third movie would be more modestly-scaled and it would probably feel more like Pitch Black than Chronicles [of Riddick]. It will always be Riddick-centric."

And he says the film will focus more on the characters and how they deal with their tense situation, the same way Pitch did.

There's nothing more refreshing than reading a director talk about something everyone is super excited about, with actual insight and self-awareness. Chronicles, although amazing, did tackle a bit too much material, I'm happy to see that Vin and Twohy are focused and ready to deliver. Read the rest of the interview over at Shock Til You Drop.

What do you do when the one person that went to bat for your career slowly backs out in favor of another project? Cohen, has basically left Diesel's latest picture to rot, in favor of another awful-sounding project called Medieval. Is the next xXx script so terrible that Cohen is willing to turn down truckloads of money, in favor of making a historical film that's been called the Magnificent 7 in the olden days?

Cohen said it was a tough decision. Who can replace him? Maybe Diesel can rope in McG. Honestly, he should just do it. It'll give him a chance to turn his special attention to a franchise that can only benefit from his touch. And Diesel needs a director who can give him some cool backdrops to emote against.

[Variety]

Metallo
Yeah, yeah; he's got the hair to play Lex Luthor - or Brainiac, for that matter - but somehow we don't think we'd buy Vin as a supersmart mad scientist. So why not look elsewhere in Superman's rogues gallery for a potential role? Coming slightly out've left field, we'd love to see a Superman reboot that featured the cyborg with a kryptonite heart, and think that Diesel could make us believe in the genuine threat hidden behind the thug exterior.

The Titanium Man
So Metallo is part man, part machine...? Sounds like an Iron Man villain to me. So why not lobby Jon Favreau to bring Diesel into the third Iron Man installment as longtime foe, spy and fellow armor-wearer the Titanium Man? Admittedly, a rewrite of his backstory may be necessary - would anyone want to see another Russian spy after IM2's Black Widow? - and his secret identity has to go. Who would really buy a character called Boris Bullski these days?

Electro
He'd have to lose the green and yellow outfit, but if Sam Raimi wants to ditch the new-fangled villains and go back to some classics for Spider-Man 4 and 5, he could do worse than pick Maxwell Dillon, the workman given control over electricity that appeared in the first year of Spidey's existence.

Kraven The Hunter
Sticking with the Spider-Man universe for a minute, I have to admit that there's something weirdly compelling about seeing how well Diesel's Russian accent skills are holding up these days and making him into Sergei Kravinoff, the big game hunter who comes to New York to try and capture Spider-Man for the publicity... only for it to become increasingly personal. I'm sure there's also a fanbase out there who'd happily watch him bare-chested and in leopardskin pants for a couple of hours, as well.

The Absorbing Man
This is, no joke, the supervillain role that Diesel was born for - Crusher Creel, a boxer and low-life tricked by the Norse God Loki into becoming a supervillain who can absorb the properties of whatever he touches (Like the X-Men's Rogue, but with inanimate objects). Fast and Furious shows that audiences like watching Diesel as a tough guy, and how much more tough can you get than a guy who goes toe to toe with Thor? Plus, the Absorbing Man even looks like Diesel already. Why Marvel aren't already on the phone with Diesel's agent already, I have no idea.

In an interview with Sci Fi Wire Vin Diesel spilled a few introductory details as to where we will find our favorite Furyan.

We're going to find Riddick alone for the first part of the movie, barely alive, surrounded by carnivorous monsters who are trying to eat him...So you'll see a futuristic Rambo-esque Riddick trying to survive.

Wait: a First Blood Riddick? That's exactly what I want. Thank you, Twohy, for delivering exactly what we were looking for: big bad uglies and Riddick, kicking ass and delivering one-liners. I'm almost okay with not talking about the Necromongers at all, if you have our boy slaying baddies with a tube of bubble-gum flavored lip gloss. (Thank you, Grey Area.)

In an interview with Game Spot about his latest Riddick video game, Diesel spilled the beans about the next Riddick project:

Maybe we're too tight-lipped about the next Chronicles of Riddick film, and I think circa the release of [Dark Athena] that's probably when you'll start hearing more about the next Riddick film. It is underway, and I almost think it's a coincidence that we haven't heard anything, that there hasn't been a lot of public stuff on the Riddick movie....

I think we were so adamant about knocking this game out of the park that we've been doing a lot of late hours—the overtime's on the game at the moment while [Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick screenwriter] David Twohy is finishing up the next script.

Well I'm glad that Twohy is back, because he really needs to come back and put out another Riddick that makes sense the first time around - even though I cherish every single moment that bald brute is on screen. But what will it be about? Will we get to see the Necromonger verse, is he still the Furyian leader, smelling beautiful and playing "who's the better killer"? What about his past, which has been shrouded in mystery for some time?

In any case, I'm delighted, because Riddick news means I get to post this clip:

Death By Tea Cup! So what should Riddick kill someone with in this film?

The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, voiced by Vin Diesel (who else!) is the long awaited update since the 2004 Riddick game Escape from Butcher Bay. Athena picks up right after Riddick's escape from the last game. Riddick and John Vessel get sucked into the clutches of a bounty hunters ship... but, of course, he's not going down without killing a few people with unconventional objects. Here's the video from G4, which will be hosting the game's producers tonight at 8 PM.

If that's not enough for you, there will be even more goggle-faced goodness when Riddick is released on Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and PC in the spring.

"I'm done with the Marvel hero. What would be exciting that no one has come to me with yet would be a villain that we are familiar with in Marvel and showing the complexities of..." Diesel has one in mind but he's not revealing who it is just yet.

What's our guess? Red Skull, he's such a bad dude that it might be the break out character that Diesel is looking for, there is nothing redeeming about Captain America's Nazi enemy. Plus we know that they're making the Captain America film so it could be possible.

For the video interview and a few other villainous suggestions check out MTV's Spalsh Page.

In the film, Vin Diesel plays Toorop, an ex-mercenary who is getting paid to transport an important girl from one end of the globe to another, while dodging enemy fire and hiding from the oppressive government. But according to Kassovitz, it should have been so much more. He worked on a project whose main point was to focus on refugee trafficking in a gritty tomorrow, as well as political issues like censorship and a declining educational system. Instead, Kassovitz told AMC's Scifi Scanner:

"It's pure violence and stupidity," he admits. "The movie is supposed to teach us that the education of our children will mean the future of our planet. All the action scenes had a goal: They were supposed to be driven by either a metaphysical point of view or experience for the characters... instead parts of the movie are like a bad episode of 24."

Kassovitz places the blame for Babylon AD squarely on the studio.

"Fox was sending lawyers who were only looking at all the commas and the dots," he says. "They made everything difficult from A to Z."

And now it's been revealed that Fox carelessly hacked away a large bulk of the plot in the editing room — about 15 minutes, but still enough to make Diesel joke that his entire performance is on the cutting room floor. Still Kassovitz did say that there are a few moments where he is pleased with the end result. Though he was quick to add that he didn't think anybody would prefer his film over Batman.

[AMC Scifi Scanner]

[via Twitch]

[Premiere Magazine]

Looks like Aurora's special powers are slowing down space and time with her mind beams. Also, her lady pal Sister Rebecca can kick a lot of karate ass. Oh yeah and Thoorop has robot hands and dies, he says so himself.

Here's the official synopsis:

Veteran-turned-mercenary Thoorop takes the high-risk job of escorting a woman from Russia to China. Little does he know that she is host to an organism that a cult wants to harvest in order to produce a genetically modified Messiah.

[SciFiCool]

Last year, dystopian future movie Babylon A.D. held a contest on MySpace to generate user video to appear on video screens in the background of some of the film's scenes:

[Director] Mathieu [Kassovitz]'s goal is to enhance the authenticity of this film by adding futuristic and innovative ads and fake news footage. We will integrate them, throughout the film on various screens : futuristic TVs, personal tablets, vehicles and especially on a huge scale, on the sides of New York buildings. That is why he thought he should launch this contest to give a chance to anyone who wishes to show their vision of the future.

A surprisingly long list of people "won" the contest, which means Vin Diesel will be scowling his way past loads of weird video made by tweens using FinalCutPro. Which is sort of awesome, actually. Also, I think Diary Of The Dead had a similar contest recently. [Watchmen YouTube contest, thanks to Michael]