In less than two weeks Vin Diesel will return to the screen with the xXx franchise that he began 15 years ago. But now that he's back, we have to wonder if he's here to stay. Is the return of one film a signal that the franchise will be back in the long term? According to Vin Diesel, Paramount is ready to get to work on a fourth movie almost immediately. They apparently want to get the schedule locked down now before the new movie is even released.
Well, it's funny. I was in the middle of an interview and Brad Grey --- who runs Paramount --- calls me and says, 'Will everybody come back to work in May?' I'm like -- everyone's in interviews right now!
Needless to say, it would appear that Paramount is ready to get to work on xXx 4 right now. One has to assume there's a script already being put together if the studio thinks that they could be ready to start filming another movie by May. At the same time, Vin Diesel's comments to Variety would seem to imply that this phone call was one he wasn't necessarily expecting.
The other thing that we can take from this, beyond the fact that a new film is on the radar, is that it will apparently follow the same formula that xXx: The Return of Xander Cage is setting up. The previous films in the series were solo action affairs, but this new one is a team up movie. The cast includes Ruby Rose, Tony Jaa, Donnie Yen, Deepika Padukone and more. Since Paramount wants "everybody" to come back, it seems that they're not only convinced people will want to see xXx again, but they'll want to see everybody else again as well.
It would appear that xXx may be following the same path as Vin Diesel's other major franchise, The __Fast and the Furious. In both cases Diesel got them started, but then left them in the hands of others. It wasn't until Diesel came back to the series that the franchise really began to take off and the series has spawned numerous sequels since then. Are we on the cusp of seven more xXx movies? We wouldn't bet against it.
If xXx: The Return of Xander Cage turns out to be as good as the cast that came together to make it we certainly won't be against seeing more of them. It would seem that the studio has a feeling that it will be if they want to lock everybody down to make another movie already. We'll find out for sure when the new movie hits theaters January 20.
