The Chronicles of Riddick:VinXperience has translated the recent issue of the french Score magazine, in which writer/director David Twohy dishes up tons of new info about this summer's Pitch Black sequel, which stars Vin Diesel...

Where do the origins of TCOR come from?

I did not like the sequel idea the studio offered to me. I said to them: "If you want to develop his story, you have to make it more ambitious." So I offered them the idea to develop a trilogy around Riddick, Vin Diesel's character, so this way TCOR would be the first part. In case of success, we will do C-2 and C-3 (the code name for the two sequels after TCOR), just like Peter Jackson did LOTR, doing the two movies during one shooting. The idea was if I spent a certain part of my life on a project, it had to be the richest and most ambitious as possible. When Universal saw the success of LOTR, they happily accepted my idea.

After the success of PITCH BLACK (40m$ income - 23m$ budget) you would think that you would have done a blockbuster but yet you chose BELOW, a small movie. Why?

After PITCH BLACK, I wanted to do a movie without monsters. I like the athmosphere the movies from the '40, like LA FELINE, and wanted to pay my hommage to that genre. I knew that the dark tone would be perfect for BELOW, that way it would give a different style to the submarine movies. Otherwise, I found it interesting to do a yet another challenging, a tough exercise. It's a genre, where you play with the tension, different characters living together and the claustrophobia. The reference in this genre is DAS BOOT, the Wolfgang Petersen movie, that had a style, almost like a documentary. So I entered BELOW with the idea to make a completely different movie from my previous movies, PITCH BLACK or THE ARRIVAL. And now I do believe, I have succeded.

Did the fame of Vin Diesel help you to choose RIDDICK?

Absolutely. Without Vin Diesel, you could not see me now. Vin really did the career choice of these days to make TCOR with the best conditions possible. If you see xXx, you will be impressed with his presence and charisma. And they are the qualities Universal accepted to make RIDDICK. In a certain way, there are two stars of this movie: the sci-fi and Vin Diesel. Sci-fi sells itself to the genre fans, while Vin brings a broader audience to the movie.

Riddick is a bad man, a murderer. How can you build a gigantic movie around such a troublemaker character?

Exactly that's what I love in this movie. Riddick is an anti-hero. He is not the glorious type who confronts the difficulties with positivity. He carries a very negative vision on the world and the people with himself. I don't want to glorify him, and exactly that's what was hard to make the studio understand. In reality, we see the other Star Wars, TCOR won't be manichean with the Good against the sBad. This movie is less schematic. The hero is a murderer, but within the negative dimension, you will realise, there's good within him. Also, this movie follows the path of Pitch Black, where all the characters had a double edge. This movie is too controversial, too cool for an expensive film.

It seems like Riddick has "primitive powers", so they say?

This movie will uncover the origins of Riddick, and the viewers will realise that he is not a normal man. You will better understand how is he changing. Riddick is much more than you can believe. You will explore the new powers and forces within him. The movie will follow him towards countless universes, battling with the enemies. But TCOR is also about spiritualism. There will many theological references, even if I am agonistic. But religion and the way they practice it, interest me a lot. Religion has a very important role in the history of the mankind, and also in the way people are built. Talking about religion, that's good way to ask question about there functions.Both in PITCH BLACK and BELOW, I was interested in people with faith. Whether it is of religion or supernatural phenomena. RIDDICK will move a step further into that direction.

CLICK HERE for the entire interview!