It's considered unprofessional to say negative things about a movie that you're acting in, especially when you say them before the movie even comes out. However, it appears that Vin Diesel has an issue with xXx 3: The Return of Xander Cage. The man who plays Xander Cage himself took to social media to address his fans directly and inform them that he has seen the first cut of the new xXx movie. According to Diesel, there was one glaring issue with it.
I don't want to say anything negative, but I have to be honest. If there was one complaint I had about xXx the first cut, it's too short. I wanted more. When people have been waiting fifteen years for this franchise to return, you can't just give them an hour and a half. It's not fair because you just want more.
We're guessing that Paramount won't be too upset by Vin Diesel complaining about the film's length. Ultimately, the only person who might be annoyed would be the movie's editor. Also, possibly movie theater owners, who can squeeze in more screenings per day if the movie is shorter. 90 minutes does seem like a really short movie, however. While we wouldn't necessarily expect xXx 3: The Return of Xander Cage to be a three-hour epic, as Vin Diesel says, after 15 years away, fans will want to see a lot more and we would expect that there would be enough action sequences alone to give the film a decent run time.
Of course, the question becomes, what's the reason for the really short runtime? It could be that the editor just decided to streamline the film as much as he possibly could, so he chopped out every scene that wasn't absolutely necessary to the plot. There could be plenty of material that was filmed that could be put back in. However, it's also possible that there isn't a lot of extra footage, or that the footage they have really can't be used for any number of reasons. Is there a possibility that xXx 3:The Return of Xander Cage could need to go back for reshoots? It certainly could happen, although, as Vin Diesel says in his Facebook post, the cast of this film is an impressive list of names. Getting them all back together again on short notice could be a chore.
Whatever they need to do to give us more of The Return of Xander Cage is probably going to be just fine. We're certainly looking forward to the return of the franchise, of course, if that 90-minute cut is so good, maybe it's the way to go. If it's really amazing, we can just watch it twice.
How much more xXx 3 do you want to see when the film hits theaters in January? Let us know in the comments.
