Before Fast and Furious turned into one of the biggest franchises in the world, people though of Vin Diesel of a man of three franchises. Fast and Furious, of course, Pitch Black and xXx. Even though Diesel only showed up in the first xXx film, he long said he’d return to the spy-fi series. Now he will.
Diesel posted the below image on his Instagram saying that “While I was filming XXX, guys on set called me Air Diesel... The time to return has come. Filming starts December in the Philippines.”
Who will direct, write or what the film will be about, we don’t know. But it’s definitely amusing to make the announcement during the second weekend Straight Outta Compton, produced by and based on the life of xXx 2 star Ice Cube, is dominating the box office. It would be excellent to combine the two stars into a mega sequel, but that’s pure fan fiction at this point. In fact, a once rumored title of xXx 3 was “The Return of Xander Cage” so expect Diesel to run the show.
Xander Cage is the name of Diesel’s character in the 2002 hit, which was directed by Rob Cohen. Cage is a former extreme sports athlete recruited by the government to go undercover and use those skills to fight bad guys. The movie was a gadget-filled, hyper-stylized action movie kind of in the mold of the current Fast and Furious movies. It was a big hit and was followed in 2005 by a Diesel-less, Ice Cube sequel, xXx: State of the Union. That film was a financial and critical disappointment. Hence the 10 year layoff.
Diesel is so popular these days, and fans are so hungry for big action films, you have to think xXx 3 will cause some excitement, even if many people don’t remember the first film. I remember the film and am not particularly excited about it. But the same was probably said after Diesel came back to the Fast and Furious franchise after missing two movies and we all know how that turned out.
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