Vin Diesel Announces Director of XXX 3

Movie XXX 3 Vin Diesel about 8 years agoby Ben Pearson

After being replaced by Ice Cube in xXx 2: State of the Union, Vin Diesel has been wanting to return to the world of his extreme sports spy character Xander Cage from 2002's xXx. In an interview with io9, the producer/star announced who will be directing the new action thriller:

“I’m excited as hell about XXX. D.J. Caruso is directing it, which is exciting. The big question now is which will race to production first now that F. Gary Gray is on [Furious 8]? Will XXX race to production first or will Fast race to production first?”

Caruso directed Taking Lives, The Salton Sea, and Two for the Money, though he's best known for Disturbia and Eagle Eye. After the disappointing box office returns of his last big movie, I Am Number Four, back in 2011, he's been relatively quiet, but now he's getting back into big budget filmmaking. It'll be interesting to see what he can do with this story; the script will likely be awful (come on, it's a sequel about an extreme sports guru turned secret agent), but maybe Caruso can bring some style and flash to it.

Diesel previously announced that the xXx 3 would start filming this December (though we aren't sure if the subtitle The Return of Xander Cage is officially still in play). That means he'll likely jump on that project before filming Furious 8, which doesn't hit theaters until April of 2017. There should be time to fit this sequel in before coming back to the franchise that made him a star.

“XXX is one of those films you do when you need to have a little fun. When the weight and pressures of all the other things have gone so far that you need to have a character that you can just have fun and more comment on life and comment on the outcome than being in it like Dom Torretto [from Fast and Furious]. Dom is very much the center of the storm, Xander is more the guide to something else and you’re just with him.”

All of this will be way before a potential Inhumans movie begins filming, a film in which the actor continues to tease that he'll play Black Bolt.

Is anyone excited for xXx 3?