March 13, 2009

Vin Diesel Talks The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, the Movie's Future and More
By Louis Bedigian

“I could explore things in the games that I may not have been financially able to in the movies. Concepts in the game that would involve another $50 million in the movie were not practical for the movie. [But it's] a wonderful opportunity for me to explore in the game.”

It's not every day that a game is more revered than the movie it was based on. But ask anyone who's played The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay what their favorite part of the Riddick franchise is and they will almost always respond, "The video game."

That's good news for Vin Diesel, who has been drawn to Riddick's world, story and characters from the beginning. "With characters that are that personal, there are a lot of reasons why you go back to playing them," says the actor. "Sometimes you just don't know why you gravitate toward a character. Why you feel compelled to revisit him and continue the story. But there is clearly something that is very dear to me about Riddick that compels me to further explore the character and the realm he lives in.

"I was intrigued by Riddick from the beginning because of the complexity of a character that would otherwise be viewed a serial killer. What's interesting is that we are told he is the killer, we are told he is the criminal. And yet when we see him interact with other characters there's always something behind his actions. There's something about that that makes me go back to him. And not just in movies; I take great pride in the interactive universe of gaming."

Since he brought it up, we just have to know: will there be a new Riddick movie? "Very good question and you probably know the answer to that," Diesel responds, speaking in a tone that confirms the existence of a third film. "I actually can go into a little detail. David Twohy [writer and director of Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick] is scripting the next Riddick movie as we speak. The story will return to a Pitch Black setting while servicing the mythology of Riddick. What we're going to find is Riddick alone for the first part of the movie with carnivorous monsters all around trying to eat him. Man it's so cool. This movie, I get nervous just trying to touch on it."

Launching a Studio

Much of Vin Diesel's success in Escape from Butcher Bay and the upcoming Assault on Dark Athena can be credited to his own game development company, Tigon Studios. "One of the interesting things for me in terms of launching Tigon, especially in launching Escape from Butcher Bay, so much of the time [movie] studios who license games to developers were doing games related to movies without incorporating any of the process that goes into making movies.

"I could explore things in the games that I may not have been financially able to in the movies. Concepts in the game that would involve another $50 million in the movie were not practical for the movie. [But it's] a wonderful opportunity for me to explore in the game. As a true gamer, when you play the Riddick game, that concept was that you should feel like you're going deeper into the universe."

In The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, that universe includes online multiplayer. "As much as I loved Escape From Butcher Bay, there were times when I missed being able to play Riddick against my friends. [Competitive] online play is what separates [Assault on Dark Athena] from anything that you may have expected. It's got the Riddick first-person singular experience and now we were able to up the ante and allow you to play against your best friend in a different country."

How It All Began

"When I first started playing games, I felt guilty about how much I loved [them]," said Diesel, describing the roots of his video game obsession. "And to be honest, how addicted I can become to these games. In the beginning of my career, I didn't talk about it, didn't share it with anybody. I was secretly a gamer.

"When I did Saving Private Ryan, I had the great pleasure of working with Steven Spielberg. When I realized that he was launching [Medal of Honor], somehow that gave me a green card to launch a video game company that caters to one of my favorite pastimes. So it was because Steven Spielberg was able to get away with it that I felt like I could get away with it.

"It started before video games though. Video games are really popular now, for everybody. But the generation now, I can't help but think that they think video games have been around forever. They missed that generation that promoted video games [to] the phenomenon [they are today]. That's the generation I come from. As a kid in New York, when we were in grade school, the way that we played video games was that we'd go into Radio Shack and play Pong. Then that grew into Space Invaders, Donkey Kong and Pac-Man. That was an arcade experience. Then we, and I know I'm telling you stuff you know, we got Atari and ColecoVision and all the wonderful game systems we have today that allow you to feel that arcade experience at home.

"But before all that, before gaming had the ability to assimilate a Dungeons & Dragons experience, it was [the traditional] Dungeons & Dragons. So where did my appreciation of video games come from? Probably Gary Gygax [co-designer of D&D]. Anybody from that generation, the generation that shepherded video games into pop-culture, that was also around the Dungeons & Dragons revolution. Any of those people are gamers to the core."

Dream Games

Every gamer has dreamed of creating the ultimate game. Vin Diesel shares his fantasy with us, assuming a world where money is not an issue.

"My dream game is something we've been working on in-house," he says, noting that the game is real. "We haven't talked about it much. We're still mulling over how to get it just right. The reason why it's my dream game is because it is a massively multiplayer online game. Remember, [if] funds were not an issue in this scenario. I mean, this is obviously a huge undertaking.

"[In this game] you create an avatar that lives the reality of Hannibal Barca, who dies 200 years before Christ," he teases. "Creating that ancient world as a backdrop is my dream scenario. But we all know those games take a lot of work to create."

The Wheelman

Though Riddick has been significant part of Vin Diesel's career, he is also very excited about another property he's working on, the movie and video game combo known as The Wheelman. "Both the movie and the game are being created simultaneously. Hopefully within two years we will have pulled this off. It will be the first time an [original] IP has been produced simultaneously for a movie and a game. Midway liked the tune of it and wanted to see if it was possible. The film is at Paramount; the game is at Midway and Ubisoft."

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