Source: CHUD, facebook

Yesterday, Vin Diesel mentioned on his official facebook page that location scouting had begun for a third Riddick movie. The third chapter in writer/director David Twohy's sci-fi franchise has also secured foreign financing, although it is dependent on the film getting additional US financing and distribution.

The first Riddick film, the $23 million, R-rated Pitch Black, was released back in 2000, before Diesel's breakout hit The Fast and the Furious, and grossed $39.2 million in unadjusted dollars. By the time the second film, The Chronicles of Riddick, was released in 2004, Diesel was a major star and the original had found considerable success on video. The PG-13 sequel cost $110 million and was a financial failure, grossing only $57.6 million in the United States. Twohy has said in interviews that Universal, the distributor of the two original films, offered to make another big-budget, PG-13 sequel, thanks again to home video success of the second film, but that he and Diesel believe a third film should return to the smaller-scale, R-rated roots of the franchise.

Earlier this year, Twohy made A Perfect Getaway at Universal, starring Milla Jovovich and Steve Zahn, which broke even at the US box office with a $15 million gross against a $14 million budget. There was also an extremely popular Riddick video game called Escape From Butcher Bay, which had Diesel reprising his role. The game was released on XBOX in 2004, then remade as Escape From Dark Athena last year for the XBOX 360.